Mobile councilman arrested in O.B. is “confident justice will be served”

Mobile councilman arrested in O.B. is “confident justice will be served”
Ben Reynolds alledgedly disrupts field sobriety test on boat near Boggy Point

Although it must be noted that anybody who is arrested is presumed innocent until a conviction or a guilty plea, if what alledgedly ocurred during his arrest for public intoxication while he was a passenger in a boat in Orange Beach is true, then Mobile City Councilman Ben Reynolds owes and apology to Jeffrey Bartlett, the driver of the boat.
According to the police report, Reynolds was a passenger on a boat that was stopped near Boggy Point boat launch on July 2 just after 7 p.m. for failure to turn on navigation lights after dark and traveling too fast in a no-wake zone.
While an Alabama Law Enforcement Agency trooper was administering a field sobriety test to Bartlett, Reynolds interrupted the officer, according to the police report.
The first term city councilman continued to interrupt the trooper even after being told several times to stop. Noting that his breath smelled strongly of alcohol, the trooper asked Reynolds if he had anything to drink that day. Reynolds allegedly responded that he had and the trooper then arrested him for public intoxication and arrested Bartlett for boating under the influence of alcohol and operating a vessel without a license, in addition to the tickets for the two minor offenses.
In a statement released before the July 5 Mobile City Council meeting, Reynolds was less than conciliatory.
According to his statement, he seems to either refute the information in the police report or somehow not believe that interrupting a police officer trying to conduct a field sobriety test is not an arrestable offense.
“I would like to acknowledge the very difficult job our law enforcement officers are charged with and the fact that many of their decisions have to be made in less-than-optimal situations,’’ Reynolds stated.
“As I move forward in this process and the judicial system is able to take a more deliberate, thorough view of the evidence, I am confident justice will be served.’’
According to his arrest warrant, Reynolds was arrested because he was publicly intoxicated and considered to be a danger to himself. He spent the night in the O.B. jail and was transported to the county jail in Bay Minette the next morning before being released shortly thereafter.