Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz once fled from police during a 90s DUI (driving under the influence) arrest and later blamed deafness as the c...
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz once fled from police during a 90s DUI (driving under the influence) arrest and later blamed deafness as the cause, though court records dispute his claim.
On Tuesday, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate. Following the announcement, numerous stories resurfaced about Walz’s past, including his 1995 DUI arrest, Newsweek reported.
According to a court transcript obtained by the outlet, Walz was driving in excess of 90 miles per hour in a 55 mph speed zone when police pulled him over.
He failed a sobriety test and a breath test in which his blood-alcohol level registered at 0.128%, which was way above the state’s legal limit at the time of .08%, according to a Nebraska state trooper’s report, the New York Post noted.
The report also noted that “a strong odor of alcoholic beverage was detected emitting from Mr. Walz[‘s] breath and person.” The governor was then booked into Dawes County Jail.
In court, his attorney claimed Walz had only fled from police because he mistakenly thought he was being chased by someone, but he finally pulled over once the officer turned on his siren, Newsweek noted.
“This is a little bit bizarre, but Mr. Walz thought somebody was chasing him. The officer didn’t turn on his red lights and he — somebody came up real fast behind him and he didn’t know what they were doing,” Walz’s lawyer Russell Harford told the judge.
“So he sped up to try to get away, fearing that somebody was after him. Lo and behold, it was a state patrolman that was behind him, so the faster he went, the faster the state patrol officer went,” he added.
“Finally, he did turn on his red lights,” Harford continued. “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,” Harford added.
Walz was initially charged with driving under the influence, but ended up having the charges dropped to reckless driving after taking a plea agreement in which he had to admit that he “drove a vehicle in a manner as to indicate an indifference or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property,” according to Alpha News.
In 2006, Walz ran for Congress in Minnesota and when the issue of the DUI came up, his campaign manager Kerry Greeley told the Post Bulletinout of Rochester, Minnesota, that Walz wasn’t drunk.
“He couldn’t understand what the officer was saying to him,” Greeley then claimed, saying Walz had suffered some kind of hearing loss from his time in the Army National Guard, the Post noted.
The Post noted that court records involving Walz’s DUI arrest and the state trooper’s report do not back up the hearing loss claim.
Walz reportedly has previously said he was not drunk at the time, Newsweek noted.
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