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By JERRY LYNOTT jlynott@leader.net
Friday, February 04, 2000 Page: 7A
DUNMORE – Police are awaiting the results of a blood- alcohol test to
determine whether to file drunken-driving charges against a Scranton newspaper
editor.
Robert L. Burke, managing editor of The Scranton Times and The Tribune,
said he was stopped last month and tested for driving under the influence.
Burke added that he failed an agility test because of a back problem,
prompting the officer to request Burke to have a blood sample taken.
“I don’t think I was under the influence at all,” Burke said on Thursday.
Dunmore police Chief Sal Mecca said Burke was pulled over at about 6:45
p.m. on Jan. 14 near North Webster Avenue and Green Ridge Street. An officer
saw Burke’s car cross the double-yellow lines more than once before the stop,
Mecca said.
Burke had an odor of alcohol on his breath; his speech was slurred; his
eyes were glassy, and he appeared to be intoxicated, said Mecca, reading from
a police report.
The officer, Richard Barth, conducted an agility test and asked Burke to
provide a blood sample. Burke agreed and the sample was taken at Community
Medical Center in Scranton, Mecca said. “He was totally cooperative.”
Mecca said Burke mentioned his back problem to the officer.
The police chief said the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office will
be notified of the test results. If the reading is above 0.10 percent, the
state level at which an adult in Pennsylvania is considered intoxicated, a
charge will be filed with a district justice, Mecca said.
Call Lynott at 829-7237