05172016 - News Article - Police video shows union official dropping Hammond mayor's name

Police video shows union official dropping Hammond mayor's name
NWI Times
May 17, 2016
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/police-video-shows-union-official-dropping-hammond-mayor-s-name/article_6a67d78b-0591-5514-8109-cd132ee0a5a9.html

HAMMOND — A Lake County union leader dropped Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr.'s name as he was trying to avoid arrest this spring on suspicion of drunken driving.

McDermott's office, responding to a request from The Times Media Co., released a police video showing Randolph "Randy" Palmateer mentioning the mayor, first casually and later pleading with officers, "I want my phone so I can call Tom McDermott. I don't want this sh--. Don't send me to the county."

McDermott said Tuesday, "I can't control what people say when they are being arrested. Randy is my friend, to this day. I don't think Randy should have done that, personally, but he did. I want to point out that the right thing happened at the end of the day, despite the fact that my name was dropped."

Lake County Sheriff John Buncich said Tuesday that he is sure Palmateer didn't want to go the county jail, "because he wouldn't get any special favors and would have to go through the same process as everybody else, especially with it being his second offense."

Police arrested Palmateer, business manager for the Northwestern Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, and the prosecutor's office charged him with operating his union-provided vehicle while intoxicated.

He pleaded guilty May 2 to the lesser violation of reckless driving, his second such offense in five years.

The nearly 10-minute video is shot from the body camera of a police officer at a sobriety checkpoint 9:25 p.m. March 25 in the 7200 block of Kennedy Avenue.

The officer states, "You smell like you've had alcohol. There is alcohol in your car." Palmateer responds, "I had one beer. We just left the game. Came back. I'm meeting Tom McDermott at his house."

The officer responded, "Great. Tom knows we are having a DUI checkpoint."

Palmateer said, "I know. He told me that, too."

When the officers laughed, Palmateer said, "I swear. Jesus Christ. You can look at my text messages."

McDermott said Tuesday he was at a Boyz II Men concert that night when he heard from his police chief of Palmateer's arrest.

Officer T. Laurinec reports Palmateer failed two out of three field sobriety tests. When informed he was "borderline" and would be taken to the police station, he replied, "I'd rather you not do that. I'd rather just leave and go back toward Tom's house."

After being put in handcuffs, he agreed to take a portable roadside breath test, which measured his blood-alcohol concentration at 0.155, almost twice the legal limit of 0.08.

McDermott said Tuesday, "It was horrible timing. Little did I know when Randy got pulled over I would be sucked into the drama."

He said Palmateer was preparing a union endorsement of Marissa McDermott, the mayor's wife, at a crucial moment in her campaign for Lake Circuit Court judge. She won the May 3 Democratic primary.

"Randy was helping us, and the building and trades endorsement was huge for us," McDermott said. "That was pending when this all went down and we were afraid that it would affect the race."