Addison Watson
Staff Writer
awatson25@murraystate.edu
The sixth night of the Murray Police Department Citizens Police Academy consisted of vehicle accident reconstruction, traffic stops and the use of polygraphs.
Officer Mark Balentine has been a police officer for 22 years. Balentine started his career with the Murray PD. He also has worked for the Calloway County Sheriff’s Office and the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office. Five years ago, Balentine decided to return to Murray to finish his career.
Balentine starts his day off in the morning at 5 a.m. He works the road as a patrol officer, but has a specialty in accident reconstruction. In 2002, Balentine went to accident reconstruction school in Jacksonville, Florida, where he attended the Institute of Police Technology and Management.
Vehicle Accident Reconstruction
While at IPTM, Balentine learned how to take the evidence from a scene and reconstruct it in complete detail using software programming to find out crucial details of a vehicle accident. He can measure the tire tracks on a roadway and determine the minimum speed a vehicle had to be traveling in order to leave the tracks.
Balentine also informed attendees in the case of a fatality, he can remove the airbag control module from the vehicle, which tells him how fast the vehicle was traveling at the time of impact, the engine rpms and whether the vehicle was accelerating or decelerating.
Balentine said when he removes the airbag control module from a vehicle and compares the data with his own calculations, he is generally consistent with the module.
“With the newer technology, I don’t have to hand calculate everything anymore,” Balentine said. “I calculated the speed out of a vehicle accident one time by hand and came up with 72 mph. The airbag control module said 74.”
Balentine said generally around the Murray area, he only reconstructs about one accident a year. When he was working in Marshall County, he reconstructed nearly 20 accidents a year.
“With higher speeds like you see along I-24, the Purchase Parkway and other faster roadways, there is going to be a higher number of fatalities,” Balentine said.
Speed is not the only contributing factor to the severity of a wreck. Balentine said the weight of a vehicle can drastically affect the damage involved in a wreck, and drivers have to be conscientious of what they are doing on the road.
“One of the highest contributing factors from what I have observed when working wrecks is when drivers overcorrect their vehicle,” Balentine said. “They may fall off the side of the shoulder on a roadway and then jerked the wheel the other way – that is when they wreck their vehicle.”
Balentine said if there is a way to train yourself as a driver to not overcorrect your vehicle and panic, then do so.
“It is just something drivers need to keep in the back of their mind,” Balentine said.
Balentine was sure to mention that wearing a seatbelt is undoubtedly the easiest and safest thing you can do when getting into a vehicle. In one instance, Balentine showed the attendees a seatbelt he had extracted from a vehicle that had saved a person’s life.
The seatbelt had a friction burn on it from where it had prevented a person from colliding with the steering column of the vehicle.
“Seatbelts are incredibly strong,” Balentine said. “If that person hadn’t been wearing their seatbelt, they would not be alive today.”
Besides accident reconstruction, Balentine discussed his normal patrol duties, specifically making traffic stops and administering field sobriety tests for potentially impaired drivers.
Traffic Stops
Balentine has been making traffic stops for all of his career, but he is always extremely cautious when approaching a vehicle.
“There is no such thing as a no-risk traffic stop,” Balentine said. “You always want to be conscious, not only of the people you are stopping, but of your surroundings too. You have to think about your overall safety and the people on the road.”
If Balentine stops a vehicle he is suspicious of for driving under the influence, he will administer field sobriety tests to the driver to determine their level of intoxication. Balentine uses three main tests.
The first test is a one-legged stand test where the driver is asked to stand on one foot with their other foot approximately six inches off the ground. The driver then counts out loud to 30 or until Balentine instructs them to stop doing the test.
The second test is a walk and turn test where the driver is asked to take 10 heel-to-toe steps, pivot 180 degrees and then take 10 heel-to-toe steps back the other direction. During these two tests, Balentine is looking for specific cues to determine if a person is under the influence of alcohol or a narcotic.
Balentine then conducts a horizontal gaze nystagmus test. He does so to check if a driver can focus on a stimulus with their eyes, usually with the tip of a pen or a small light, and to see if their eyes have an involuntary jerking movement.
“Messing up one part of one test is not going to fail someone,” Balentine said. “I will take into consideration all three of the tests administered and then make a decision from there.”
Balentine will also give a preliminary breath test, which is used to detect alcohol on the breath. It is not admissible in court as evidence, but rather to show alcohol was on the breath of the driver.
Once Balentine has arrested a person for driving under the influence, he transports them to the hospital where he must read an implied consent form to the person he is going to administer a breath, blood or urine test to. If he does not read the form verbatim, his entire case can get dismissed in court.
Kentucky is a multi-testing state, which means an officer can request any type of test he wishes to prove intoxication based on his judgement. If the arrested person refuses, it will be documented as refusal in a court of law.
The arrested person also can request a seperate test to be given to them by a nurse, doctor, phlebotomist or any other medical professional licensed to do so. However, the test is afforded to them at their own cost.
In addition to these tests, the Calloway County Jail is equipped with an intoxilyzer, which is a breath test machine that is calibrated by the state and offers a level of intoxication that is permitted in court.
The machine can also detect if a person is a diabetic and not intoxicated due to alcohol or a narcotic, but rather their regular body levels are irregular causing them to act in a strange manner.
Brad Simmons, an attendee of the Citizens Police Academy, was put through the field sobriety test.
“It was a little nerve wracking,” Simmons said. “I was thinking just focus on the task at hand.”
Simmons said when he drinks socially, knowing the tasks he would have to accomplish in a field sobriety test, that there is no way he could pass.
“Having to count from 1-30, if you’re on the fence as to if you could do it or not, you probably are going to fail,” Simmons said.
Polygraphs
To end the night, Tim Fortner, a patrol officer with the Murray PD, gave a demonstration of how a polygraph test is administered and how the results can be used to determine if someone is telling the truth.
Fortner went to polygraph school in 2002 at Nashville State Community College. However, the school is no longer offered there now.
“Initially, I went to polygraph school as a backup plan,” Fortner said. “If I could no longer perform the duties as a police officer, I would have a plan to fall back on.”
Fortner said while the polygraph machine is commonly known as a “lie detector test,” it is also a truth test. It’s intended to determine if someone was telling the truth. The Murray PD uses the polygraph for hiring purposes and in criminal investigations on rare occasions.
The polygraph measures heart rate, bodily sweating increases, blood pressure changes and other biological factors that are associated with lying. When the test is being administered, a baseline or control is established. If a person does not tell the complete truth, a biological variance will occur and will be reflected on Fortner’s program.
One attendee underwent the polygraph machine for demonstration purposes.
The next Citizens Police Academy will be held on Monday, Nov. 25, where courtroom procedures will be discussed.
Addison Watson is a staff writer for The Murray State News. As part of his assignment, he is attending the Citizens Police Academy at the Murray Police Department to write this series of stories. You can find all of his articles in the series at TheNews.org.