An investigation by Cedar Rapids' KCRG-TV found that totally sober drivers in Iowa are routinely arrested and charged with operating while intoxicated (OWI), and there's no system to keep track of how often this happens. Over the past two years, more than 2,000 OWI cases were dropped, and in the last year alone, nearly 1,000 breath tests on arrested drivers showed zero alcohol. Defense attorney Bobby Rehkemper says he sees 10 to 20 of these mistakes every year, blaming unreliable field sobriety tests that officers use to justify arrests based on their gut feelings. In one 2023 instance, police arrested Dominic Tangen, strip-searched him, and held him for six hours before charging him with OWI because an officer said he seemed high on a stimulant. More than two months later, Tangen's urine test came back, showing he had been clean at the time.
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