Was it special treatment when Long Beach police cleared a city councilwoman of driving under the influence on the 710 Freeway and let her get a ride home with a friend afterward?

Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce registered a .06 blood-alcohol level when officers gave her a breath test on the side of the roadway on the early morning of June 3, two law enforcement sources recently revealed to the Press-Telegram.

But whether Pearce should have been arrested that night depends on more than just that number, according to a DUI defense attorney and a former police chief who weighed in.

They said it’s possible officers could have justified arresting Pearce on suspicion of drunk driving, but it appears police acted reasonably by letting her go.

CHP officers were the first authorities to find Pearce in the wee hours of June 3 after they noticed a car stopped along the center median of a winding 710 Freeway off ramp near the Ocean Boulevard overpass.

Pearce admitted she’d been driving, according to authorities.

Pearce’s former chief of staff, Devin Cotter, who’d recently left his job under clouded circumstances, was with her. The two were having a heated argument, authorities said.

The CHP called in Long Beach police who soon determined Pearce had been drinking that night, but officers decided she wasn’t impaired and didn’t arrest her, according to people familiar with the investigation.

A friend picked up Pearce from the scene and officers drove Cotter home, Long Beach police said in a series of statements released after the June 3 incident.

Long Beach police got involved in the situation around 2:40 a.m. when the CHP asked them to respond because Pearce or Cotter — police wouldn’t say who — made accusations about domestic violence.

“That is normally what happens,” said Jim Bueermann, a retired chief from Redlands who is now president of a law enforcement research nonprofit called the Police Foundation.

CHP officers will typically handle an investigation if they suspect only a traffic violation, but if they think a more serious crime occurred, they often turn it over to the local authorities, according to Bueermann.

At the scene, Long Beach police officers gave Pearce the breath test that measured her blood-alcohol level at .06 percent, according to the two sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

That blood-alcohol level is below the well-known .08 percent limit in California. Nevertheless, it’s high enough for a driver to face DUI charges in some cases.

“The law says if you’re between a .05 and a .08 there is a gray area where you may be impaired, you may not be impaired,” said Nigel Witham, a Long Beach-based DUI defense attorney.

If officers believed Pearce was not too impaired to drive with that level of alcohol in her system, they were right to let her go, according to Witham.

To justify a drunk driving arrest at .06, officers need other evidence — like someone driving erratically — to show impairment, according to Bueermann.

In one of its statements addressing the freeway stop, the Long Beach Police Department said Pearce “successfully completed a field sobriety test.”

Multiple officers at the scene with experience recognizing drug or alcohol impairment were satisfied Pearce passed the test, according to one of the law enforcement sources.

Unless Pearce volunteered to come with officers to the police station for a more precise measurement of her blood-alcohol level, there was nothing officers could do but release her unless they had reasonable suspicion of another crime, Bueermann said.

Long Beach police said they didn’t find enough evidence on the 710 to arrest either Pearce or Cotter on suspicion of DUI or domestic violence.

After police finished up, Pearce got a ride home from a friend, and officers took Cotter home, according to authorities.

Witham said he’s known officers to arrange rides or give one themselves after drunk-driving investigations, but he also said it’s not unusual for someone to be arrested with a .06 blood-alcohol level even if the case doesn’t hold up in court.

“They got a break,” Witham said. “They could have been arrested and they could have had to spend some time in custody and face a court date.”

Bueermann said it was normal — and probably prudent — for officers to get Pearce and Cotter home safely.

“It is very common for the officer to say even though you don’t meet this legal threshold, you’re upset, you’re probably not really safe to drive, which is different than being drunk,” Bueermann said.

With the accusations of domestic violence, the situation was probably heated, Bueermann said, and an emotional driver is not a safe driver.

“It’s like distracted driving at the extreme end,” he said.

The Long Beach Police Department opened an internal investigation into how officers handled Pearce and Cotter after Stephen Downing, a columnist at the Beach Comber local newspaper, first wrote about the incident in a June 7 article that accused police of giving the councilwoman VIP treatment. He also filed a formal complaint.

Downing is a former Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief who lives in Long Beach and often vociferously criticizes the city’s law enforcement.

On July 17, police said they finished their internal review and concluded any allegations of misconduct weren’t true.

Since June 3, the situation between Pearce and Cotter has ballooned beyond a possible DUI.

Later that morning, police arrested Cotter outside of Pearce’s home. Authorities said he confronted Pearce there. He’s been charged with public drunkeness and pleaded not guilty.

They also took Cotter into custody on a $50,000 arrest warrant. He’s accused of violating his probation for a prior DUI conviction, according to authorities.

Police didn’t arrest Cotter for the warrant earlier because a rookie cop who ran Cotter’s name through the system misread the results, according to a law enforcement source.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office is considering filing misdemeanor domestic violence charges against Pearce or Cotter. It’s still not clear who.

After the freeway incident, Pearce said publicly that she’s the victim of domestic violence but would not name the alleged perpetrator. Cotter has denied being the aggressor. Cotter’s attorney said Cotter was injured that night, but stopped short of alleging it was at Pearce’s hand.

Both Cotter and Pearce have been unwilling to explain their relationship.

On June 3, a police dispatcher referred to Cotter as Pearce’s boyfriend while communicating with officers at the scene, according to a log of messages between officers and the police department’s call center.

But it’s unclear who originally used that description and whether it’s accurate.

The Press-Telegram obtained the log through a public records request.

Police have declined to release more detailed reports about that night because authorities are still investigating.

The District Attorney’s Public Integrity Division has also gotten involved. Police said they sent those prosecutors details on the case after Pearce and Cotter accused each other of conflicts of interest and other “inappropriate behavior.”

Pearce and the city severed their professional ties with Cotter months before the June 3 incident.

On Dec. 14, Cotter went on paid leave from his position as Pearce’s chief of staff.

As part of a separation agreement, Cotter was instructed to avoid contact with Pearce and her office. During Cotter’s leave, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia acted as a go-between for Pearce to contact Cotter if there were work-related questions she needed to ask. Cotter previously worked for Garcia.

City Attorney Charles Parkin said there was “tension” between Cotter and Pearce.

Cotter received his full pay through Feb. 1, and also got a lump sum of $6,418, according to the document. He agreed not to sue the city over his employment as part of the agreement.