More people are driving under the influence in Brownsville and that is why the city is experiencing an increase in DWI arrests, police say.
In the last couple of weeks, Brownsville police officers have been arresting those caught driving while intoxicated and some of those arrested are repeat DWI offenders, said Investigator Martin Sandoval, spokesman for the Brownsville Police Department.
“It (drunken driving) is a problem here in Brownsville. I know a lot of people have said, ‘oh, that’s not big deal, it’s not a problem here.’ Well, it is. It’s a serious issue here in the city of Brownsville that actually puts all of our citizens and community at risk,” Sandoval said.
There were 269 DWI arrest in Brownsville in 2021. There were 54 DWI arrests made in the first three months of 2021. In January 2022, the latest numbers available, 13 DWI arrests were made.
A Brownsville mom on Feb. 8, 2022 pleaded guilty to one count of intoxication manslaughter. She admitted to driving drunk and killing her teenager son in the process. The woman drove her vehicle at 55 mph in a 30-mph area where she lost control and hit a tree. Her son was passenger in the vehicle. She had an alcohol concentration of at least 0.08 in her body at the time of the accident. She was sentenced to 10 years in state prison.
In 2021 statewide, there were 181,094 DWI arrests and out of that number 9,746 were dismissed, according to a report by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Sandoval said many of the arrests are conducted by officers working the weekends, which is when people like to go out and have fun.
“Weekends are the perfect times for DWIs. There have always been DWI arrests but it’s never actually been put out to the public,” Sandoval said.
The reason Brownsville PD is letting the public know about the DWI arrests is because it has become an issue and the police department is dealing with it the best they can.
“We need help from everybody; we need help from the community. If you see somebody that is intoxicated don’t give them the keys, give them a ride…a lot of these businesses if you see that somebody is already intoxicated, call them an Uber or something,” Sandoval said.
“The biggest fear we all have is that these individuals will go out and cause a major accident costing the life of somebody and that is what we have to think about,” he said.
Gone are the days when individuals being arrested for DWI were mostly older men. Those being arrested are young men and women and older. “There’s no such thing as certain age groups, a certain ethnicity, a certain gender, there’s nothing, it’s everywhere,” Sandoval said.
Getting arrested on a DWI is expensive. An arrest on a first offense averages between $15,000 to 18,000, which includes attorney fees, court fees, fines and getting your vehicle out of impound.
“A $20 cab ride versus a $15,000 bill…I would believe that people would know that I’ll pay $20 right now to eliminate paying that $15,000,” Sandoval said.
“I think a lot of these people just choose not to pay attention” to how costly being arrested for DWI is, Sandoval said. When he was a patrol officer and arrested people for DWI, their mentality was, “well ‘one out of so many that I have done’.” He arrested between 85 to 100 people a year on a DWI charge.
Sandoval said it only takes one DWI to cause an accident and kill someone.
“It (DWI) is a big problem and I understand the problem. It’s just when people say ‘oh, I’m not hurting anybody, oh, it’s not a problem.’ People don’t get to see the carnage that DWIs do. We do as police officers, something that could have been avoided, they say ‘no I am going to drive’,” Sandoval said.
