By Josh Solomon
TAMPA — A Tampa police officer
was suspended without pay Thursday, and now faces termination, hours after he
was jailed on a drunken driving charge.
Anton Neil Lipski, 32, was
arrested at 3:20 a.m. Thursday on a misdemeanor DUI charge, jail records show.
He registered blood-alcohol levels of more than twice the limit at which driver
is presumed impaired — 0.180 and 0.164 in two tests — the records show.
Lipski, a patrol officer
assigned to a late shift, was off-duty and driving his own car when he was
arrested near Highland Avenue and W Violet Street in Seminole Heights.
Traveling north on Highland
Avenue, Lipski struck the median on Violet Street with his 2004 silver Acura
and then careened into a 3-foot concrete wall on a nearby property, authorities
said. He got out of the car on his own and was not injured.
Responding officers learned
Lipski was a police officer after they arrived. He showed "obvious signs
of impairment," said Deputy Chief Brian Dugan, and officers called a DUI
unit to the scene to conduct a field-sobriety test.
"It's embarrassing to me,
it's a disappointment," Dugan said at a news conference. "As police
officers, our job is to keep the roadways safe and not become part of the
problem out there."
Lipski was released Thursday
morning from the Hillsborough County Jail on $500 bail.
Police Chief Jane Castor, when
she took over in 2009, implemented a "zero-tolerance" policy in the
department for driving under the influence, said police spokeswoman Laura
McElroy. If the evidence indicates an officer was driving while impaired, the
policy states the officer will be terminated — even if the officer strikes a
deal with prosecutors to avoid a DUI conviction. Since Castor became chief,
McElroy said, no officer had been arrested on a DUI charge until Thursday.
According to the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement, Lipski joined the Tampa force on March 5, 2013.
He was with the Gainesville Police Department for four years before that,
officials said.
Lipski earned good marks on his
annual performance report in February, having met expectations. He was also
listed as a "safe driver" on the report.
