Reports detail O’Rourke’s DWI in 1998

Senate candidate’s case was more serious than previously known

Police reports of Beto O’Rourke’s DWI arrest 20 years ago – when the Democratic Senate candidate had just turned 26 – show that it was a more serious threat to public safety than has previously been reported.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke has long owned up to his drunken driving arrest 20 years ago, describing it in a Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News op-ed piece earlier this week as a “serious mistake for which there is no excuse.”

Although the arrest has been public knowledge, police reports of the September 1998 incident — when the Democratic Senate candidate had just turned 26 — show that it was a more serious threat to public safety than has previously been reported.

State and local police reports obtained by the Chronicle and Express-News show that O’Rourke was driving drunk at what a witness called “a high rate of speed” in a 75 mph zone on Interstate 10 about a mile from the New Mexico border. He lost control and hit a truck, sending his car careening across the center median into oncoming lanes. The witness, who stopped at the scene, later told police that O’Rourke had tried to drive away from the scene.

O’Rourke recorded a 0.136 and 0.134 on police breathalyzers, well above the legal limit of 0.08 in Texas. He was arrested at the scene and charged with DWI, but completed a court-approved diversion program and had the charges dismissed.

In a statement Thursday, O’Rourke did not address the witness account of his alleged attempt to flee.

“I drove drunk and was arrested for a DWI in 1998,” O’Rourke said. “As I’ve publicly discussed over the last 20 years, I made a serious mistake for which there is no excuse.”

That and a separate arrest for jumping a fence at a University of Texas-El Paso facility have long been a matter of record in O’Rourke’s public life, both on the El Paso City Council and in Congress. But the unexplained details of the crash and DWI in Anthony, a suburb about 20 miles north of El Paso that borders New Mexico, could now emerge as a potential attack point in his quest to unseat Texas Republican Ted Cruz.

The Cruz campaign declined to comment Thursday on the police report. Recent polls have

shown the two candidates in an ever-tightening race, with O’Rourke enjoying a large fundraising advantage built on small dollar donations. O’Rourke has also disavowed money from political action committees, giving his longshot bid the aura of a grassroots campaign free of special interest influence.

Neither arrest has factored significantly into O’Rourke’s political career, though both were used against him in his successful 2012 campaign against former El Paso Congressman Silvestre Reyes in a predominantly Hispanic district.

O’Rourke has long characterized the incidents as youthful indiscretions in which he showed “poor judgment.”

To some extent, he has sought to leverage them to advantage. After a recent tour of the Harris County Jail with Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, O’Rourke cited his own scrapes with the law as part of a plea for criminal justice reform.

“Those mistakes did not ultimately define me or stop me from what I wanted to do in my life or how I wanted to contribute to the success of my family and my community,” he wrote in the op-ed piece, which was published Monday.

The law enforcement reports show two elements of the incident that have been overlooked: that there was a crash involved, and that O’Rourke allegedly attempted to flee.

Though no injuries were reported, an ambulance was called to the scene.

A Texas Department of Public Safety report on the incident was based on a motorist’s description of O’Rourke’s dark-colored Volvo passing him quickly about 3 a.m. on I-10. The Anthony Police Department and DPS reports differ as to whether O’Rourke was heading east or west on the interstate, but both agree that he struck a truck going in the same direction and crossed a grassy median into the opposite lanes.

Police said O’Rourke then attempted to leave the scene but was stopped by the same motorist he had just passed. The unidentified motorist “then turned on his overhead lights to warn oncoming traffic and to try to get the defendant (O’Rourke) to stop,” the report says.

The DPS report described O’Rourke as having “glossy” eyes, slurred speech, smelling of liquor, and almost falling to the ground as he got out of his car.

The accident occurred just as O’Rourke, the son of an El Paso County Judge, had celebrated his 26th birthday the night before. He told police he’d had two beers and had been on cold medication. He later told the El Paso Times that he was driving an intoxicated friend home, though no passenger is mentioned in the police reports.

At the time — still seven years before he first ran for city council in 2005 — O’Rourke was starting up an internet and software company in El Paso. Police reports listed his occupation as “salesman.”