FISHERS, Ind. -- Controversy is brewing after a Fishers police officer gave a high school principal a ride home instead of taking him to jail following an apparent drunken driving traffic stop.

Fishers High School Principal Scott Syverson was pulled over early Saturday morning near 96th Street and Allisonville Road.

---

Slideshow: See Surveillance Images Of Exchange Between Officer, Apparently Drunk Principal

---

Officer Kevin Kobli said Syverson's blood-alcohol content tested more than double the legal limit, 6News' Cheryl Jackson reported.

Most of the traffic stop was captured on the officer's in-car camera, on which Syverson appeared to fail three sobriety tests.

Fishers Police Chief George Kehl said in a statement released Thursday that Kobli did not violate department policy, but the traffic stop would be reviewed to decide whether policy should be changed.

Syverson was stopped after Kobli saw his vehicle swerving and nearly striking a curb several times, according to a memo Kobli sent to Kehl on Thursday.

The officer said he recognized Syverson but had a hard time understanding him because the principal had placed "a large amount" of chewing tobacco in his mouth.

Kobli said Syverson told him he had five beers. The principal then failed some field sobriety tests and a portable breath test, Kobli said.

The officer said he talked to a captain and a sergeant about the case and was told to "do whatever you think is necessary."

Kobli then drove the principal to his home and brought Syverson's wife back to get his car.

Kehl said Syverson should have been arrested and jailed.

"I don't know of any time an officer has ever taken anybody home who was intoxicated," Kehl said. "They always went to jail."

The police chief said he intends to tighten a department guideline that gave Kobli the discretion to show such leniency.

No phone number was listed for Scott Syverson in Fishers or Indianapolis. The Associated Press left a phone message seeking comment from him at Fishers High School.

Hamilton Southeastern Superintendent Concetta Raimondi declined to comment on the traffic stop through a school district spokeswoman.

"She said we have to investigate this as a personnel matter, and we don't currently have anything to share," spokeswoman Marianna Richards said. "We are gathering information."

Surveillance Camera Illustrates Incident

The in-car video, released by Fishers police, revealed that Kobli was frustrated because Syverson would not blow fully into the Breathalyzer.

"I'm working with you, OK? I don't need the fake breathing," Kobli said.

During the stop, Syverson got out of his car and talked to Fishers police Capt. Dave Dunbar on a phone, Jackson reported.

Surveillance audio was turned off as the phone was handed to Kobli, who also talked to Dunbar, after which the officer offered to take Syverson home and get someone to drive his car home.

"Can you not follow me home?" Syverson asked Kobli, who told the principal that he had seen him bouncing off curbs.

"You are not driving. You are more than double the legal limit," Kobli said.

"I passed all the tests," Syverson said, to which Kobli replied: "You failed all the tests horribly. Your are double, almost triple the legal limit."

In the car, Kobli told Syverson that Dunbar had warned him that police would be patrolling 96th Street.

Later, as Kobli drove Syverson's wife to his car, he told her the same thing.

"When I talked to Dave Dunbar, he told him earlier, because he worked the basketball game, to avoid 96th Street because we were going to be working it," Kobli said.

Syverson was named administrator of the year by the Indiana High School Press Association this year.

He became principal at Fishers High School in 2004.