This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Steve Unger is a 68-year-old retired anesthetist from University Hospital and a Vietnam veteran with a Purple Heart.
Since he retired two years ago, he took up walking several miles a day for exercise and then expanded it into an avid dance routine that he would break into from time to time on his route.
Unger likes to wear flamboyant, colorful walking clothes during his jaunts, which has made him a familiar figure in Holladay, where he lives.
He can be seen in the center of town, around 2300 East and Murray-Holladay Road, dancing, jerking and waving at passing cars. Most of the time, he says, motorists honk and wave back. Police stop, on occasion, to chat or exchange pleasantries.
But Unger's enjoyable routine turned into a nightmare recently when he ventured away from the friendly confines of Holladay into neighboring Cottonwood Heights.
He had dropped off his car for some service the morning of Aug. 24 and decided to take one of his walks along the curb where joggers are often seen, pausing from time to time to dance and wave at passing cars.
Unger was near Van Winkle Expressway on Highland Drive when a Cottonwood Heights police car stopped and an officer began questioning him.
She said there were reports that he was blocking the street, which he denied, assuring her that he stayed on the curb. She then asked him for his identification, which he didn't think he should have to supply.
He tried to continue walking when another Cottonwood Heights officer pulled up and told him to sit down on the curb. Unger invoked his right to walk along the curb and mind his own business. The second officer handcuffed him and planted him in the back seat of his patrol car.
Unger was detained for about 45 minutes, then cited for disorderly conduct, failure to disclose identity and interference with an arresting officer. He has a court date in Holladay on Oct. 14.
Sgt. Corbett Ford, public-information officer for Cottonwood Heights, said the police responded to a legitimate complaint from motorists and had a right to ask Unger for his ID. State law, Ford said, requires an individual to comply with such a request.
Meanwhile, Unger is back walking and dancing, but he is staying in Holladay.
Giving cops tongue • If you happen to be driving in Juab County or Utah County, and perhaps other parts of the state, be sure you don't suck on a lime Popsicle. It might get you busted.
Salt Lake City defense attorney John Quinn discovered recently that police in certain jurisdictions are asking drivers they pull over to show them their tongues. If the tongues have a green tint, the officers use that as probable cause to search their cars on the premise that smoking marijuana turns tongues green.
While representing a client on a possession-of-marijuana charge in Juab County's justice court recently, Quinn noticed in the arrest report that the officer had inspected inside the mouths of the suspects and alleged that "green tint covered their tongues." Quinn asked the prosecutor if he considered that a sign of marijuana use. The prosecutor said yes.
Quinn later discussed the matter with a friend who works in a prosecutor's office in Utah County. The friend confirmed that police officers there consider a green tongue to be evidence of smoking weed.
This could lead to dire consequences on St. Patrick's Day.