Loveland to pay $400,000 over Colorado DUI arrest, Driver had no alcohol, drugs in system
The City of Loveland has agreed to pay a Windsor man, Harris Elias, $400,000 over a 2020 DUI arrest in which breath and blood testing indicated Elias had no alcohol or drugs in his system.
"It sounds like a lot of money, but my gosh," said Elias,"what they did was atrocious."
Elias filed a federal lawsuit in 2022 against the City of Loveland and two of its officers over the case. Federal court records show the two sides came to a settlement agreement on Dec. 4. Sarah Schielke, Elias' lawyer, said Loveland is not admitting wrongdoing in the case. A spokesperson for the City of Loveland did not respond to a text message or phone call from CBS News Colorado.
On Jan. 4, 2020, Elias was driving home through Fort Collins when Loveland police officer William Gates pulled him over for failing to signal that he was changing lanes and driving 18 mph in a 45 mph zone.
When he approached the car, Gates said he smelled an "overwhelming odor of alcohol."
Elias told CBS News Colorado he had some of a single alcoholic drink five to six hours before the stop, but that was it. He declined to do roadside sobriety tests and Gates arrested him for suspected DUI.
A breath test at the police station showed no alcohol in Elias' system.
"I thought they would thank me for my time and give me a ride back home," Elias said.
Instead, police pressed Elias to take a blood test.
That subsequent blood test confirmed no alcohol or drugs in the man's system.
"The entire system is set up to go after people for no illegal or logical reason," said Elias.
His attorney Sarah Schielke believes the problem stems from a police culture that incentivizes officers to make more and more DUI arrests. She says officers who make the most DUI arrests are honored, given better shifts and compete with other departments to see who can make the most DUI arrests.
"When you incentivize making more arrests of that type of crime you're going to get exactly what we're looking at right now," said the attorney. "Nobody cares about the innocent people, they only care about that stat."
She called it "a culture of competitive pursuit of DUI arrests with reckless disregard for driver innocence ... in order to generate ... more bragging rights, more funding, more equipment, more officers and more (literal) trophies."
Curiously, Elias went through a similar situation with Fort Collins police in 2021. In that case, a Fort Collins officer arrested him for DUI. He spent three days in jail, but his blood test later showed no traces of alcohol or drugs. Elias is suing Fort Collins police over that arrest.
"It's just striking that it was me twice," said Elias. "I'm surprised it didn't happen to more people twice. All that they cared about was one notch in their belt and I just happened to drive by twice. Both the City of Loveland and Fort Collins picked the wrong guy to pick a fight with. And I picked the right attorney," said Elias.
