The cold side of a DWI arrest

Part one of a series.

I'm a reporter. I ask questions. Day-in and day-out, that's how I conduct my work. But recently I found myself on the wrong side of a question-and-answer session, with a Nassau County police officer running through a line of inquiry, staring blankly at me as I sat shackled to a bench.

For those arrested for driving while intoxicated in Nassau County, that's how the experience goes. One minute you're out doing as you please, and the next you're being shuffled through the legal system with few of the freedoms that you're accustomed to. 

Over the past few weeks, I've been trying to find out what, exactly, that experience is like. I've been caged, questioned and carted around the various buildings of the Nassau County legal system to learn what happens to people who get caught driving after too many drinks. I was never drinking, and I was never arrested, but in a number of simulated situations, I felt like I might as well have been.