Clearwater Police officer Jeremy Curvan clearly looked the part when he was booked into the Pinellas County Jail over the weekend on a single charge of driving under the influence. According to media reports, a local Pinellas County Sheriff's deputy found an excuse to pull Curvan over probably without realizing he was a fellow law enforcement officer until after smelling the alcohol while informing Curvan that he was pulled over for allegedly not having tail lights. The deputy noticed signs of impairment immediately, attempted to get Curvan to take a sobriety test, and read Curvan his rights after he refused to take the test by allowing the breathalyzer to time out ever time deputies tried to use it on him. The latter and Curvan's subsequent invocation of his Fifth Amendment Right to self-incrimination in response to all further questions indicates to us that he was likely drunk enough to know he had a problem and has spent enough time around breathalyzers to know how to sabotage them while maintaining plausible deniability as to whether or not he tried to comply in good faith before the device timed out.
Chief Daniel Slaughter condemned Curvan's actions and promised swift action, but has not said what action has been taken other than the initiation of disciplinary proceedings. One would think that the Chief would be quick to announce the placement of Curvan on leave, but we can find no mention of that anywhere. We would love to find some clarity as to whether or not this guy is still on the job because although most law enforcement agencies put their people on paid or unpaid administrative leave pending the outcome of a case like this, we have seen time and again including as recently as last month (https://copblaster.com/blast/48765/fillmore-county-sheriff-steve-julich-arrested-for-dui-after-crash) law enforcement officers allowed to keep working while facing DUI charges. We can think of no appropriate alternatives than unpaid administrative leave or firing in a case like this, especially when guilt is so obvious.
According to public records, Jeremy Fletcher Curvan is a 40 year old resident of Palm Harbor, Florida that recently moved from Clearwater. His only priors appear to be a pair of traffic related citations in 2020. He is a registered Republican.
Curvan is the second Clearwater Police officer whose arrest we've written about this year. Officer Jason Lambe was arrested back in January on charges of domestic battery, false imprisonment, tampering with a witness, resisting arrest, and assaulting a law enforcement officer (https://copblaster.com/blast/47742/clearwater-officer-jason-lambe-arrested-for-trapping-ex-girlfriend). We bring this up to illustrate the character of those known to have been at least recently employed by the Clearwater Police Department.
Moral of the story, if you're pulled over while driving drunk let the breathalyzer time out whenever they try to get you to blow. Act like you actually are blowing or at least trying to blow. Then tell your lawyer that you tried to take a sobriety test several times, but the device didn't work.