Man says disability caused police to believe he was drunk
Default Mono Sans Mono Serif Sans Serif Comic Fancy Small CapsDefault X-Small Small Medium Large X-Large XX-LargeDefault Outline Dark Outline Light Outline Dark Bold Outline Light Bold Shadow Dark Shadow Light Shadow Dark Bold Shadow Light BoldDefault Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Default Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Despite telling police he had neuropathy and having a disabled placard on his car, Roger Lewis was given a field sobriety test using his legs. (Source: WSMV)
By Jeremy Finley and Jordan Gartner
Published: Jun. 18, 2025 at 6:21 AM GMT+7|Updated: Jun. 18, 2025 at 6:34 AM GMT+7
MT. JULIET, Tenn. (WSMV/Gray News) – Roger Lewis admits when Mt. Juliet police arrived on his call for help, he was in a real mess.
Body camera footage showed the 66-year-old Hendersonville man standing outside his car, trying to get information from his phone that would identify the woman he’d paid in advance for a massage.
The woman had directed him to come to her apartment complex, but security told him there was no one with her name.
Lewis said the woman, whom he’d met while donating plasma, had asked that he bring some beer with him to the massage. So while waiting for the woman to respond to his texts while sitting in the parking lot, with his keys in the ignition, he opened one of the beers.
“Had a sip from it, it was terrible,” Lewis said.
“Did it ever occur to you that having the keys in the ignition and an open container could get you in trouble?” the WSMV4 investigative team asked.
“I didn’t think about it, I’ve never been arrested for anything,” Lewis said.
Lewis said he was the victim of a scam and thought police would concentrate on that. However, police had other concerns.
An affidavit for Lewis’ arrest shows that Officer J. Kirkpatrick noted that Lewis was slurring his speech.
“Did you have anything else to drink besides one beer?” Kirkpatrick asks in the body camera footage.
“No, that’s it,” Lewis responded.
When Kirkpatrick asked Lewis to do a field sobriety test, he responded, “Well, yes, absolutely.”
The body camera footage showed that Lewis made it clear that he had serious trouble with neuropathy.
“I have real bad neuropathy,” he said in the video. “Keep in mind I’ve had six total knee replacements.”Default Mono Sans Mono Serif Sans Serif Comic Fancy Small CapsDefault X-Small Small Medium Large X-Large XX-LargeDefault Outline Dark Outline Light Outline Dark Bold Outline Light Bold Shadow Dark Shadow Light Shadow Dark Bold Shadow Light BoldDefault Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Default Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Despite telling police he had neuropathy and having a disabled placard on his car, Roger Lewis was given a field sobriety test using his legs.
Kirkpatrick said he understood, but still asked Lewis to do two field sobriety tests that have to be conducted while standing up or walking.
While performing the standard “walk and turn” test, Lewis performed it so badly, nearly falling several times.
“I’m sorry, man, my leg is so weak,” Lewis said in the video. “I’m sorry, I have neuropathy like crazy.”
Also, hanging in the rearview mirror of his car is Lewis’s disabled placard.
“I told him I was going to fail it,” Lewis told the WSMV4 investigative team.
After performing badly on a test where he had to stand on one leg, Kirkpatrick then gave Lewis a nystagmus test, which checks to see if a driver has an involuntary jerking of the eyes, which can indicate high doses of alcohol.
Following that test, Kirkpatrick and another officer found powerful pain medication in Lewis’s pocket, not in the prescribed container.
“Put your hands behind your back, you’re being arrested for DUI,” Kirkpatrick told Lewis in the video.
Immediately, Lewis feared that his disability could result in a conviction for DUI.
“I’m the music director at my church in Gallatin. This would have destroyed me. My credibility would have been destroyed,” Lewis said.
Months later, Lewis’ blood work would come back showing he was negative for alcohol.
There was pain medication in his system, for diazepam and nordiazepam, but he had prescriptions for both.
A letter from Lewis’ doctor also detailed that he only takes the medication at night and “it will not impair his capabilities to complete tasks.”
In Tennessee, unlike the .08 blood alcohol level for alcohol that indicates impairment, there is no such number or level for drugs.
The blood toxicology test will show that a drug is in a person’s system, but not if it was too high for impairment. It’s up to district attorneys to determine if the level of drugs in a person’s system, combined with a failed field sobriety test, is enough for a conviction.
In Lewis’ case, court records showed the district attorney’s office opted not to prosecute.
Lewis said he could understand why the officer arrested him, given that he had an open container of alcohol in his car and failed his field sobriety test.
“I understand why the officer questioned my sobriety,” Lewis said. “I offered to do a breathalyzer over and over, and they said, ‘We don’t do that here.’”
Kirkpatrick admitted to his fellow officer that Lewis’ arrest was his first, according to the bodycam video.
“So this is my first DUI,” Kirkpatrick can be heard saying.
Tyler Chandler, deputy chief of Mt. Juliet police, declined a request for an interview, but wrote in an email that Kirkpatrick was right to arrest Lewis.
“Body-worn camera footage supports what the toxicology report already suggests: this person should not have been driving,” Chandler wrote.
The WSMV4 investigative team took the findings from the arrest and the body camera footage to Steve Thompson, a former state trooper in Louisiana who received DWI awards for four years and is now a criminal justice professor.
“I’ve shared with you what the (deputy police chief) said. What do you make of what he said?” the WSMV4 investigative team asked Thompson.
“It’s disappointing, I understand you have to protect your officers,” Thompson said.
Thompson was asked if someone who identifies that they have a disability and states that they have a condition that impairs their ability to walk should go through field sobriety tests where they have to use their legs.
Thompson said “no,” indicating that when he’s had to arrest disabled people for DUI, he used other tests, including one that requires a driver to accurately say the alphabet starting with a certain letter.
“It’s been my experience that most officers who administer these field sobriety tests do not do it properly,” Thompson said.
In reviewing the body camera footage, Thompson said that the officer botched the nystagmus test.
Thompson said that in checking for involuntary jerking of the eye, Kirkpatrick’s finger should have continuously moved from side to side without stopping.
The body camera footage shows that while conducting the test, Kirkpatrick stopped several times in the middle of Lewis’s face.
“I’m sorry, it was a pathetic excuse of a nystagmus test,” Thompson said.
Lewis said while awaiting the results of his blood test, he went back to watch WSMV’s “Sobering Problem” investigations and found an unexpected kinship.
“It was very hard to watch. It was very emotional. Because with each person that you interviewed, I knew exactly how they felt,” he said.
Pair arrested for allegedly attacking North Las Vegas KFC worker over gravy
by Matthew SeemanWed, December 31, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Updated Wed, December 31, 2025 at 12:58 PM
FILE – The KFC logo is pictured outside a branch of KFC in Bristol, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
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LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Two men were arrested for allegedly attacking a North Las Vegas fast food worker in a dispute over gravy, according to a police report.
North Las Vegas Police booked James and Gerald Carter, ages 48 and 32, on suspicion of attempted murder for the Saturday, Dec. 27, altercation.
In their arrest report, NLVPD said they were dispatched to the KFC location at Craig Road and Camino Al Norte for a report of a customer stabbing an employee.
Officers detained four people, including Gerald Carter, and found a large folding knife in Carter’s pocket. The victim was taken to UMC for treatment.
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One of the other three people said they had bought food at KFC and left when Gerald Carter “became upset about his gravy,” the report states. He went back and forth from the KFC multiple times and allegedly said the “staff had disrespected him.”
Carter returned to KFC with his uncle James, the person told NLVPD, and once the rest of the group arrived, they saw Carter and another person behind the counter fighting with someone.
The officer later interviewed Gerald Carter, who allegedly admitted to getting into a fight but said his knife stayed in his pocket. Carter claimed the employee “was calling him names and disrespecting him and that is why they got into a fight,” according to the report.
Police watched the KFC’s surveillance video and could see James and Gerald Carter going behind the counter. Gerald Carter was allegedly seen stabbing the employee several times, while James Carter was allegedly seen putting the employee “in a severe choke hold for several seconds,” the report states.
Court records indicate James and Gerald Carter are both being held at Clark County Detention Center. Felony arraignment hearings were scheduled for Wednesday morning in North Las Vegas Justice Court.
