Cops Getting Arrested

differently – one may have a single drink and be falling down, and another may be sauced and handling himself just fine. That's why leaving open the interpretation of when a person is a danger to himself or others is so important. And officers certainly don't overuse the statute, he insists – if a person can be entrusted to friends or can be put in a cab, officers will do that, he says, instead of making an arrest.

"If officers arrested every individual they find for PI," there wouldn't be any cops left on the beat because they'd all be at Central Booking, he says.

"I'm not being facetious; it's just the truth." And if officers used a PI arrest as an attitude-adjustment technique, he says, the result would be the same: "If we arrested everyone who talked to us [crossly], it would be a very busy night." And McIlvain, who used to work the Downtown beat back in the Nineties (when the territory seemed much smaller, he said – hell, the walking beat was confined to a literal walk up and down Sixth Street), says that since February 2011, when he was assigned to this post, he hasn't seen a complaint about a PI arrest. "I've never had a complaint like that," he says. "I can see where there is the potential" for abuse, and "I can't sit here and tell you it's never happened." Still, he suggests that perhaps the problem in some cases is alcohol-induced. You're "dealing with someone who may not have all their faculties and may subjectively rationalize their behavior because they're impaired," he suggests.

"Subjectivity goes both ways."

In the end, Milan Luna, who recently filed an official complaint regarding her arrest with the Police Monitor's Office, wants her wrist to heal; she wants to be able to play her bass again. Beyond that, she wants APD to create some objective standard by which PI cases will be assessed – before any arrest is made. "That's the thing, it's not just for me that I'm pursuing this," she says. "It's just straight wrong, and for people who say there's nothing you can do, so just stay low and don't say anything – that's why they keep doing it."