Weekly DWI arrests tell alarming story in RGV
It’s a ritual as steady as the South Texas politiqueras panning for gold — drinking and driving.
Each week, the booking sheets from the Hidalgo County Jail are sent to The Advance via email, which tell the story of this county’s continued fight against drunk drivers.
If you look at the top of the pages in this issue — pages 4 and 5 in Section B — you’ll see the faces of those arrested over the past week. Some look defiant, some look lost, some look dazed, but all of them are now part of a legal process that no one wants to be a part of.
In just a seven-day stretch, each and every week, we see enough DWI arrests to fill two full pages of this newspaper. And it’s a broadsheet, no less, not a tabloid.
It isn’t just the sheer number of names that gets you because the devil is in the details.
You start reading the criminal charges, and you realize it’s rarely just a “simple” case of having one too many at the local tavern, girlfriend’s house, before heading home.
There are multiple charges tacked on to the DWI, which include, for example:
# DWI with (a) Child Under 15
# Unlawful Carrying of a Weapon
# Possession of a Controlled Substance
# Accident Involving Damage to Vehicle
# Resisting Arrest
# DWI 3rd or More
# Assault Family Member
# Unlawful Carrying Weapon
# Endangerment of a Child
# Fleeing a Police Officer
The Problem Persists
The numbers back up what the booking photos show, and they paint a grim picture of an ongoing problem that refuses to budge.
While the TxDOT Pharr District saw a drop in fatal crashes last year, down to 86 total crashes and 92 lives lost, the core issue remains stubborn. Driving under the influence still sits at the very top of the list of reasons why Hidalgo County residents never make it home.
Across the state, a person is injured or killed in an alcohol-related crash every 20 minutes. Putting a face to a number, that’s about three families a day getting a knock on the door that changes their world forever.
When you see two full pages of names that may include your neighbors, co-workers, family, or maybe even friends, it’s a reminder that the “it won’t happen to me” mentality is bogus.
It would be a safe bet to say that every name on our weekly DWI pages started their night, morning in some cases, thinking they’d be home later.
Instead, they’re staring into a camera lens at the county jail, wondering how a $50 bar tab turned into more than a $10,000+ hiccup once the lawyers, bail bondsmen, and state fines get through with them.
And that’s just the beginning of the trial and tribulations that lay ahead for all the names printed each week.
How to change the drinking-and-driving culture baked into the Valley’s DNA, well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
“One more for the road, and then I got to get home.”