It can happen to anyone.  House Representative Naomi Gonzalez, D-El Paso, was arrested and charged with DWI in Austin early Thursday morning after she crashed her BMW into a Fiat that subsequently hit a bicyclist.  According to an article in the Austin American Statesman, Gonzalez was traveling at about 50 mph down S. Congress near the Barton Springs intersection when she rear-ended the Fiat.  Gonzalez, the Fiat passenger and the cyclist were all taken to the hospital and treated for minor injuries.  By all accounts, Naomi Gonzalez is considered a rising star in the Texas Legislature.  The 34-year-old attorney was born and raised in El Paso and was named Freshman of the Year by the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus in 2011.  She currently sits as the vice chairwoman of the Human Services Committee and is also a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.  Her DWI arrest affidavit indicated a blood alcohol level of 0.164–more than twice the legal limit.  Reportedly, Gonzalez told APD officers that she’d only had two drinks between 12 and 1am while visiting the W Hotel in downtown Austin.  Officers observed during their interview that Gonzalez smelled of alcohol and her eyes were bloodshot and glassy.  Officers also reported that, “She cried about how she had worked so hard to get where she was.”  The current legislative session coupled with the city’s ten day SXSW event has downtown Austin bustling.  EMS released information that they had responded to 33 incidents in a 12 hour period involving crashes, traumatic injuries and alcohol related incidents.

It has arrived.  The much anticipated yearly convergence of all things high tech, indie and musical known as SXSW.  The ten day annual conference/festival draws folks from around the world and the number of visitors is projected to be in the hundreds of thousands.  With the increase in visitors comes an increase in crime, but nothing that APD foresees as unmanageable.  According to APD Assistant Chief Raul Munguia, the biggest spike will be seen in thefts.  Typically the scenario for thefts consists of people setting their cell phones, purses or bags down one minute then turning back around to find them gone.  Last year saw seven aggravated assaults, four aggravated robberies and four sexual assaults.  The alcohol fueled fest is also expected to produce an increase in DWI and alcohol related offenses.  DWI arrests shot up 100% (from 15-30) between 2011 and 2012.  Conversely, arrests for public intoxication decreased from 83 in 2011 to 49 in 2012.  This dip is attributed to a change in APD’s protocol as it relates to Austin’s tourism boom.  Munguia stated, “With PI’s, our goal is not to arrest them and throw them in jail.  Our goal is to make sure everyone’s safe.  When people come down to SXSW and most of these events, they come in groups.  And oftentimes what we’ll do is release a person who is intoxicated to a sober person that’s with them that’s going to take charge of them and get them out of there.  And that’s what we prefer to do.”  Munguia calls this approach “tourism-centered policing”, police presence that implies law-abiding expectations delivered with a congenial, non-confrontational tone.  Feedback from our city’s first ever F1 event was very positive.  Munguia says all he heard was how pleasant the APD officers were.  Given that Austin has become what Munguia refers to as an “events city”, APD’s new approach to public safety appears to be both effective and well received.

The psychology of a DWI stop is an incredibly subjective thing.  One might suggest that there is a predetermined decision in the mind of a police officer, based on the time of day, the locale, the proximity of the vehicle to local bars/nightclubs, or the prevalence of previous DWI arrests in the same area, that a driver pulled over for a traffic infraction in that same area will be assumed drunk before the police officer even approaches the vehicle.

According to an article written by Shorstein and Lasnetski, whether a DWI arrest is made is not based on concrete, objective factors that can later be confirmed in court; rather, the decision to arrest for DWI will often be based on the perceptions, observations, conclusions and biases of the police officer.  Just about every police officer that has made a DWI arrest since the beginning of time will report that the suspect had bloodshot and watery eyes, emitted a strong odor of alcohol, had slurred or mumbled speech and failed the field sobriety tests if the driver submitted to them.  However, those conclusions are all very subjective.  How bloodshot and watery were the driver’s eyes compared to what they normally look like? What if the driver was in a smoky bar or staring at a computer screen all day? How strong is a “strong odor of alcohol”? What is slurred speech compared to how a person normally speaks?  Over the entire  period of the police encounter, how often must the driver slur his/her speech for it to be considered significant? Is the speech slurred due to alcohol or because the person is nervous? How the officer interprets these questions is very subjective.