Denver’s manager of safety is appealing a decision to reinstate a police officer who was fired after a drunken, off-duty joy ride that was clocked at 143 mph in a 55-mph zone.

Safety Manager Alex Martinez issued a statement Tuesday after the decision by a three-member Civil Service panel to reinstate Derrick Saunders, who was terminated Dec. 7.

“I believe this decision completely misinterprets the disciplinary code, undermines civilian authority to manage the police and uses the concept of consistent discipline to confine the department to the distant past, when courts punished drunk driving with small fines,” Martinez wrote. “We would never hire someone as a law enforcement officer who had engaged in this behavior.”

Martinez asked to “stay the order” and is appealing to the full Civil Service Commission. If the stay is granted, Saunders will not be reinstated before the commission’s decision.

Saunders, a traffic cop who worked photo radar duty, visited a bar in June 2010 before driving to Gun Club Road to see how fast the car could go.

A state trooper clocked the car at 88 mph over the speed limit, according to hearing officers’ findings. Saunders smelled of alcohol and admitted drinking earlier that night. His blood-alcohol level was tested at 0.089 percent — over the 0.08 percent legal limit for driving under the influence — according to the report.

Saunders pleaded guilty to impaired and reckless driving.

“The fact that you drove at this dangerous speed while your ability to drive was impaired by alcohol is shocking,” the safety manager wrote in his findings.

But in Tuesday’s decision, hearing officers said the manager acted outside the realm of the discipline matrix and did not include “mitigating factors” such as certain personal traumas in Saunders’ personal life at the time.

Martinez disagrees.

“The opinion of hearing officers that driving 88 miles per hour over the speed limit while under the influence of alcohol does not warrant termination deprives the manager of the authority to impose reasonable discipline and disrespects the efforts of the many honorable law-abiding Denver police officers to maintain high standards of professionalism,” Martinez wrote in his response.

Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com