Turns Out Cops In Victoria Faked More Than 250,000 Roadside Breath Tests

Victoria Police officers falsified more than 250,000 roadside breath tests over a five-and-a-half year period, an internal investigation has revealed.

The Professional Standards Command launched the investigation last year following reports that officers had been fabricating the results of breath tests by holding their finger over the straw hole, or by blowing into the straw themselves.

After reviewing more than 1,500 preliminary breath test devices and more than 17.7 million tests, the investigation found that 258,463 tests — roughly 1.5 percent — had been falsified.

The main culprits were general duty and highway patrol officers, particularly in rural areas. The practice was not found to have taken place during supervised drug and alcohol bus tests.

In a statement, assistant commissioner Russell Barrett said officers may have faked tests in order to meet internal targets.

“There could be a number of reasons but the main rationale I believe is to hide or highlight productivity,” he said. “Whatever reason our workforce may come up with, it isn’t acceptable.”

“This conduct will not be tolerated, any member found engaging in this practice from today has been put on notice they will be investigated,” he added.

Barrett also stressed that “at this stage in the investigation, there is no evidence to suggest fraud or any criminality has occurred”, and that “similarly, there is nothing to suggest that any of this activity has impacted on any prosecution”.

Victoria Police officers faked 258,000 breath tests. Thought it was weird when that cop made me suck on his finger before he said “beeeeeep.”

— adam rozenbachs (@arozenbachs) May 30, 2018

The state’s police association has since come to the defence of the officers involved.

“This is not about police being lazy,” said a spokesperson. “It’s about some members employing desperate, quick-fix measures to meet overly onerous expectations, in an environment of vastly depleted staffing resources.”

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h/t Fairfax.