“When the officer approached the driver, he noticed that the driver’s eyes were red and he smelled the odor of alcohol coming from within the vehicle,” the town’s statement said.

Hurst soon was asked to step out of his vehicle and perform three sobriety tests and a breath test. While the breath test showed a higher-than-allowed blood-alcohol concentration, it was near enough that the officer determined it might well be within the legal limit by the time Hurst was taken to the magistrate’s office and given a formal test that would be admissible in court, the town statement said.

“Because of this, along with Hurst’s overall performance during the field sobriety tests and coupled with the fact that Hurst had a sober companion in the vehicle who could drive him home, the officer released Hurst without charging him,” the town statement said.

Hurst said that after he was released, he and his girlfriend went to Walmart for “a period of time like the officer instructed, until he thought that we would both, you know, be, you know, even more able to get home safely.”