Man Cited With DUI At Drive-Through

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A Lincoln police officer's actions are under scrutiny after he staked out a fast-food drive-through and arrested a suspected drunken driver.

Officer Ken Morrow once patrolled inside a McDonald's, where police said they have responded to 25 calls this year. Six of the calls were for drunken drivers, so the officer got the green light from a McDonald's manager to do an unusual undercover sting, police said.

Defense attorney Mark Rappl said that on March 20, his client, Cody Schaaf, was in the drive-through, ordering four cheeseburgers and some fries. Instead, he got Morrow.

"He got a DUI driving through McDonald's drive-through," Rappl said.

Rappl said Schaaf reported that Morrow was undercover inside the restaurant with a dark jacket over his uniform.

"His observations, from 7 feet away, were that my client possessed slurred speech, bloodshot, watery eyes and an odor of alcoholic beverage," Rappl said.

An employee told Schaaf to wait in the parking lot for his order, but it wasn't a worker who brought it out. Morrow took Schaaf 's order out to him and administered a sobriety test, which Schaaf did not pass, Morrow's police report showed.

Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady said Shaff's blood-alcohol content was measured at twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent.

"Did the officer trick him? Yes. We trick people all the time," Casady said. "This was a fairly clever way of an officer catching a drunk driver."

Casady said his officer wasn't breaking any rules.

"I like it when police officers are using initiative and thinking outside the box and attacking problems in a different way," the chief said.

Rappl said he wants the judge to throw out the case. He said Morrow didn't have enough evidence to arrest his client for DUI, and there's no way the officer could have smelled alcohol while he was standing beside the fryer.

A decision is expected as early as Monday after a hearing was held a few weeks ago.

McDonald's corporate headquarters did not return calls seeking comment.