For the record my brother was the one driving while our friend Ryan did the taping for the video above.
“This guy couldn’t maintain a single lane for more than about one minute,” Kelly Potter said. “He did not belong on the road.”
Potter said that a van forced his car off the road on Beltway 8 near Bissonnet Street at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday. Potter called 911 to report the driver and his passenger pulled out his video camera to record the driver.
Kelly witnessed a drunk driver, something he and I both despise, run someone off the road so he did what anyone else would do, called 911. A twenty minute response time is awesome for HPD to respond to someone who has already run someone off the road and is weaving through traffic.
A Houston police officer eventually pulled the driver over. After speaking with the driver, the officer determined that there was no indication the driver was impaired and saw no need to give a field sobriety test. He let the driver go home to his nearby apartment.
This is not 100% accurate according to Kelly. The officers decided to let him go since he was 20 feet from the driveway to his apartment. He spoke to the Sargent on duty right after the stop and was told they decided to let him go and said the officers may have made a mistake. Channel 2 news doesn’t mention this and my brother isn’t a liar. Go watch the video, I’ll try to get the whole thing from him and YouTube it this week, and tell me if being 20 feet from your driveway is an excuse to be let go? The dispatcher told the officers my brother was there with video and they never bothered to even talk to him. They didn’t speak to the driver long enough to discern anything about his state of sobriety. I know a little about this having driven wreckers. The officers involved were lazy and shirked their duty plain and simple. There is video evidence. They have a record of the stop. They should prosecute this guy. Of course they really can’t since the lazy officers who made the stop didn’t bother to look at the evidence, or even field test the drunk bastard.
“He (the officer) was there and we weren’t,” Wice said. “The fact that that officer ultimately concluded based upon their experience, training and expertise that no further investigation was needed, while somewhat dismaying to the Good Samaritan and maybe to some of us, ultimately that’s a decision that we don’t have the right to second guess.”
I have news for Mr. Wice: We DO have a right to second guess. Anyone who watches that video has a right to second guess the officers. We have a right to demand an investigation. We have a right to hold the officers accountable for their negligence. If that man left his apartment later than night, still drunk, and killed someone the blood of his victims would be on the heads of the HPD officers who didn’t bother to do their jobs. We have every right, in fact we have an obligation, to question actions such as these. Especially when there are credible witnesses and video evidence. We have a right to demand these officers be disciplined and made to do their jobs. If we don’t then HPD will be allowed to continue being lazy. Police officers are not above the law. Mr. Wice we are not dismayed. We are outraged.
This opens up a ton of questions. Is it alright to drive drunk if you make almost home? Did the officers know the drunk driver? How long until the officers shift was over?
I want to look into getting the audio of the traffic stop under one of the free information acts so we can hear what the officers heard. I will see what all I can gather and post here.