New reports fuel debate of whether Lisa Steed arrested innocent drivers

Last year, Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Steve Winward sent a memo about the performance on probably the most controversial trooper in the agency’s history: Cpl. Lisa Steed, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. 

A UHP memo, dated two years earlier, suggested Steed was falsifying reports and arresting drivers who showed no signs of impairment. But Winward’s review was much more complimentary to Steed.

Whether Steed, 35, profiled and arrested innocent people, particularly Latinos and the poor, is expected to undergo more scrutiny in November when Steed gives a deposition in the proposed class-action civil rights lawsuit. Attorneys are suing UHP and Steed, seeking damages that could total $20 million for a yet-undetermined number of plaintiffs.