Edina Man Flips Bird During Mug Shot, Urinates in Holding Cell: 2012 in Review

Edina Patch covered a lot of different stories, topics and events throughout 2012. That said, there were a few that stood out as the most interesting, important, touching or possibly infamous to our readers.

As 2012 closes out, we're looking back at those articles. The following is one of those stories.

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An Edina man whose blood-alcohol content registered at three and a half times the legal limit has been charged with drunken driving after police say he offered to pay them $1,000 to let him go.

Samuel Edward Waters, 22, is charged with two gross misdemeanors: refusing to submit to field sobriety tests and third-degree driving while intoxicated, each of which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine.

He is also charged with hitting a car and driving away without stopping, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint, signed by an Edina police detective, a caller alerted police just before 9 p.m. June 27 of someone driving over curbs and flinging beer cans out the car windows on 70th Street West near the Galleria.

The caller provided a description of the car and the license plate number.

Police checked the car’s license plate and found that it was registered to a woman who lives in the 6800 block of Chapel Lane in Edina. An officer drove to the home, and as he approached the intersection of Chapel Lane and Valley View Road, he spotted the suspect vehicle making a right turn onto Chapel Lane, driving up and over a curb.

The officer turned on his squad car’s emergency lights, and the suspect turned into a driveway and stopped.

The officer approached the car and noted that the driver—later identified as Waters—had bloodshot, watery eyes and smelled like alcohol. Waters was holding a burrito from a nearby fast-food restaurant, but had spilled most of the burrito on his pants, the complaint notes.

The officer asked Waters repeatedly to put down his burrito and retrieve his driver’s license and proof of insurance. However, Waters held on to the burrito, which he continued to spill.

In a slurred voice, Waters asked the officer “numerous times” how much money it would take to make him “go away,” and several times offered the officer $1,000 to let him go inside his house and get some sleep, the complaint charges.

Read the remainder of the story here.

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