Driver Tells Cops She Smelled Like Alcohol, 'Because I'm A Bartender': POLICE

An Oak Lawn woman was accused of drunken driving after police spotted her Ford Escape swerving and driving at a high rate of speed around 2:38 a.m. Jan. 5, reports said.

Oak Lawn Police clocked the 2012 Ford Escape traveling at 45 mph in a 30-mph speed zone from Kostner to Kedvale on 103rd Street, police said.

Observing snow covering the Escape’s rear registration plate, the officer activated his emergency lights as the car turned right on Pulaski Road.

According to the report, the car increased its speed to 45 mph and swerved over a lane marker. The Escape entered the right lane without signaling, then slowed down because of another vehicle stopped in the right lane.

Police sad the car turned right, heading westbound on 105th Place, but stopped in the middle of the street because a snowplow was blocking the street.

The officer met the driver, later identified as Jillian Lindquist, 30, of the 9700 block of Southwest Highway in Oak Lawn.

Lindquist’s hands moved slowly as she provided her driver’s license and an expired insurance card, police said.

She allegedly denied seeing the patrol car’s activated emergency light. The officer said that her eyes appeared glassy and bloodshot, and that her speech was slurred.

Police said Lindquist denied that she had been drinking or increased her speed when she saw the patrol car’s emergency lights.

Asked why she smelled of alcohol, Lindquist allegedly told the officer, “because I’m a bartender.” Reports said that she turned her face away from the officer when informed he could smell alcohol on her breath.

Lindquist refused to take field sobriety tests, reports said. She estimated her oen speed at 40 mph, police said.

Officers said they recovered a consumed bottle of hard apple cider on the floor behind the passenger seat

She was placed under arrest for DUI. At the Oak Lawn police station, police said that Lindquist refused to take chemical and Breathalyzer tests.

While being searched, booking officers recovered a partial orange tablet of in a ziplock baggie in Lindquist’s purse, later identified on drugs.com as amphetamine and dextraoamphetamine. Police said Lindquist denied the tablet being hers, but that no one else had access to her purse.

She was charged with two counts of DUI, speeding, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, no proof of insurance, and illegal transporation of an alcoholic beverage.

Lindquist appeared in bond court later in the day.