His sycophants will merely write this off as a youthful indiscretion. In 1998 O Dork was quite an adult, at least in the legal sense at 25. Never mind Kinky Freidman, O Rourke is the quintessential "A-hole From elPaso".
Posted on 09/04/2019 10:04:29 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
The former police officer who arrested Beto O’Rourke for driving drunk in 1998, along with the sergeant who signed the incident report, both say they believe now what they reported at the time: that O’Rourke tried to leave the scene of the wreck he caused.
O’Rourke admits he was intoxicated and says there is no justification for his actions, but he has denied that he tried to flee.
“Beto’s DWI is something he has long publicly and openly addressed over the last 20 years at town halls, on the debate stage, during interviews and in Op-Eds, calling it a serious mistake for which there is no excuse,” said O’Rourke spokesman Chris Evans. “This has been widely and repeatedly reported on.”
Neither the investigating officer, Richard Carrera, nor his former supervisor, Gary Hargrove, specifically recalls the events of that night more than 20 years ago. But both of the former Anthony Police Department officers told The Texas Tribune they have no doubt the report they compiled and signed is accurate.
“I believe we have contradicting stories here,” said Carrera, who arrested the 26-year-old O’Rourke and took him to a police station to undergo a breath test. “I stand by my report.”
Carrera, 49, said after reading the police report, in which an unnamed witness claimed O’Rourke tried to flee in his Volvo, he has “no doubt that he tried to leave the scene.”
Hargrove, 71, oversaw the crash scene but does not remember being there. However, he said he believes what his officers told him about the two-vehicle collision that occurred in Anthony, a tiny town near the Texas-New Mexico border west of El Paso.
Hargrove said the report, which he reread after the Houston Chronicle published it last year, shows O’Rourke “struck the [other] car from the rear and he ended up in the median pointed the wrong way, and he took that as his chance to get away.”
“He did something to lead the officers to believe that he was trying to get away,” Hargrove said. “What they put down, I believed them.”
Until now, O’Rourke was the only person present at the scene of the wreck to speak out publicly about what happened that night. O’Rourke told Vanity Fair he had been drinking in El Paso — Jameson whiskey with his father, the former county judge of El Paso County — and later with a high school friend. He was taking his date, identified only as Michelle in the article, back home to Las Cruces, New Mexico, when the crash occurred.
During last year’s Texas Tribune Festival, O’Rourke said he reached out to the woman for the first time in more than 15 years and asked her recollection of that evening — and he told Tribune CEO Evan Smith during an onstage interview that she had the same recollection he did.
“She said, ‘No, we were in the median of the road. We did not try to flee. I don’t know that there was anywhere we could have gone,’” he said. The Tribune has requested an interview with the woman through the O’Rourke campaign.
Evans, the O’Rourke spokesman, noted that “the police report shows he was arrested for a DWI not for leaving or attempting to leave the scene.”
Carrera could not recall if there were any discussions about bringing charges against O’Rourke for attempting to flee the scene.
An Army veteran who served in Iraq in 2009 and now works for the federal prison system as a drug treatment specialist, Carrera said he’s not political and probably won’t vote in the 2020 elections. Hargrove, who retired after more than four decades in law enforcement, identified himself as a Republican.
In the 12-page incident report from Sept. 27, 1998, Carrera wrote that he was dispatched at about 3 a.m. to Interstate 10 near the New Mexico line in “reference to a motor vehicle accident.”
His sycophants will merely write this off as a youthful indiscretion. In 1998 O Dork was quite an adult, at least in the legal sense at 25. Never mind Kinky Freidman, O Rourke is the quintessential "A-hole From elPaso".
Well, that IS a Kennedy thing to do. He was merely emulating his heroes.
Was this before or after he was writing about his mass murdering goal of killing kids?
Teddy Kennedy Redux????
If this were a DUI case involving Trump, the media would report it the day before the election like it was a ‘revelation’.... Much like they did to Bush in 2000... Bush was headed for a landslide election and the RATS had to do something to stop that momentum.
Lessee... out on the town with a silver spoon up his butt, too much whiskey, a woman in the car, too important to face the music...
And he dang near has the teeth.
I guess that in a B-list sort of way, Irish Bob O'Rourke may have a few of the ingredients.
All people of Irish descent should take offense at this obvious attempt to smear an entire culture with an accusation against one drunk driver.
Where’s the outrage?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.