If it has to happen, this is the way it's supposed to go down.
Earlier this month Sgt. Monica Ann Bradford, a desk sergeant at the Michigan State Police Traverse City post, was arrested for drunken driving on her way home from the Leelanau Sands Casino. Someone at the casino apparently called police after she was cut off by a bartender and left.
She was pulled over by a Leelanau County Sheriff's deputy who said she was speeding and weaving in and out of the lanes on M-22 near Elmwood Township. Bradford -- who told deputies she worked for the State Police -- failed field sobriety tests; a preliminary breath test showed she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16 percent. The legal limit for driving in Michigan is .08.
Prosecutor Joseph Hubbel said "no special consideration was asked for or granted" at the scene. Bradford later apologized.
"I'm extremely humiliated," Bradford said from the Traverse City post, where she's served since 2004. "I'm embarrassed, and I'm sincerely, sincerely sorry. I've let myself down. I've let my department down. I've let my family down."
All this is a long, long way from how two Grand Traverse County deputies handled a situation involving Traverse City police officer Joseph Soffredine.
The two were dispatched to Cedar Run Road in the wee hours of Feb. 7 where they came upon Soffredine's burning truck, stuck in the snow. Soffredine had apparently gone off the road and then revved the engine so much in an effort to get out that it caught on fire.
Soffredine was not given field sobriety or breath tests, and the deputies didn't cite him for reckless driving or speeding or not having a current registration; his plates had expired six months earlier.
Bradford stood up. She admitted what she had done and apologized to the community and her department. That's accountability. The Soffredine situation is ... well, it's not accountability, that's for sure.
