“Gov. Tim Walz has said in past campaigns that he wasn’t actually drunk when he was pulled over for driving under the influence in 1995, but a court transcript from the case tells a different story,” Alpha News reports.
Walz was a teacher in Alliance, Neb., his home state, when he was pulled over Sept. 23, 1995 for going 96 mph in a 55-mph zone.
Alpha News provided a copy of a Nebraska state trooper’s report on the incident that said, “a strong odor of alcoholic beverage was detected emitting from Mr. Walz[‘s] breath and person.”
From Alpha News:
Walz submitted to and failed both a field sobriety test and a preliminary breath test, according to the report. He was then transported to Chadron Hospital for a blood test before being booked into the Dawes County Jail.
He was initially charged with driving under the influence and speeding, but the charges were reduced to a lone count of reckless driving under the terms of a plea deal.
Walz’s arrest would emerge during his successful 2006 campaign for Congress in Minnesota’s First District.
However, there weren’t many articles about the incident.
Walz’s campaign manager told the Rochester Post Bulletin he was “not drunk” and “attributed the misunderstanding to Walz’s deafness,” an issue Walz said was caused by his time in the National Guard that has since been “surgically corrected.”
The Rochester Post Bulletin reported:
Walz’s campaign manager Kerry Greeley didn’t dispute that Walz was speeding when he was pulled over that night, but she said Walz was not drunk. She attributed the misunderstanding to Walz’s deafness, a condition resulting from his years of serving as an artillerist in the Army National Guard.
“He couldn’t understand what the officer was saying to him,” Greeley said.
She said deaf people also can have balance issues. The judge eventually threw out the DUI charges against Walz and chastised the officer for not realizing that Walz was deaf, Greeley said.
Alpha News relayed further details:
The results of the blood test were later suppressed, seemingly as a result of the trooper’s failure to realize Walz was deaf, according to the Post Bulletin article. This means the results wouldn’t have been used as evidence against Walz had the case gone to trial, but they were still referenced during a March 13, 1996 hearing on the plea agreement.
During that hearing, former Dawes County Attorney Rex Nowlan said that Walz had a blood alcohol concentration of .128 at the time of the incident.
“Mr. Walz was driving south of town on 385 in Dawes County at a high rate of speed. Actually, he was driving away from the police officer. I think that he eventually hit a speed of over 80, as I recall. When he was stopped, he was given a blood test which did show a .128 blood alcohol,” Nowlan said, according to a court transcript.
Walz’s attorney, Russell Harford, later acknowledged that Walz “had been drinking” but said he was driving away from the state trooper because he “thought somebody was chasing him.”
“The state patrol officer turned around and, this is a little, a little bit bizarre, but Mr. Walz thought somebody was chasing him. The officer didn’t turn on his red lights and he — and somebody came up real fast behind him and he didn’t know what they were doing, so he sped up to try to get away, fearing that somebody was after him,” Harford said.
“Low and behold, it was a state patrolman that was behind him, so the faster he went, the faster the state patrol officer went. Finally, he did turn on his red lights. The speed was fairly excessive, judge, a lot over the speed limit. I don’t even know what was alleged in the complaint, it may have been 90 something. Mr. Walz had been — had been drinking, so I think there’s a sufficient factual basis, judge, to support the plea,” he continued.
Harford further admitted that Walz had “a .128” but described this as a “relatively low test.” At the time, the legal limit in Nebraska was .10 but, like all states, has since been lowered to .08.
Tim Walz Lieshttps://t.co/d66nZetG8d
— Minnesota Freedom Club (@FreedomClubMN) October 11, 2022
Tim Walz has lied about (so far):
▶️His drunk driving arrest
▶️When he knew about the Feeding Our Future fraud
▶️His military service
▶️Locking your kids out of schoolMinnesotans deserve a governor who doesn't lie to his constituents. https://t.co/H02RFRV6nv
— Republican Party of Minnesota (@mngop) October 11, 2022
A BAC of .10 or higher results in reduced reaction time and control, slurred speech, slower thinking and reasoning, and an inability to coordinate arms and legs, according to American Addiction Centers.
This level of intoxication causes a “significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of good judgment,” says the University of Notre Dame.
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