Mestizos account for nearly half of 2002 Austin DUI arrests

[JAT]

By the time police stopped him, the driver of the Ford Escort had sped out of an East Austin alley and slammed into a curb.

Oscar Medina, 25, could barely walk a straight line or count to 10 when he got out of the car. Reeking of alcohol, Medina told an officer he had drunk seven beers that night and had had nothing to eat since breakfast.

A breath test indicated his blood alcohol level was .163 percent, twice the legal limit.

Medina, who was arrested June 7 and jailed on a charge of drunken driving, contributes to an unfortunate Austin statistic: Of 3,007 drunken driving arrests in 2002, 43 percent involved Hispanic men, even though they make up only about 11 percent of Austin's driving population.

http://www.statesman.com/specialrepo...runkdrive.html

<--"Tequila!"

[Sinclair]

Ai ai ai, arriba arriba!

[Snouter]

The cartoon character was banned for politically correct reasons. Click image for classic Speedy commentary.

Since the late nineties, Speedy has been noticeably absent from the Cartoon Network’s daytime and prime time lineup, apparently for fear of offending Mexican Americans. And aficionados have launched a campaign to get him back, alerting other fans to join a letter-writing campaign to request that Cartoon Network restore Speedy to its rotation.

Free Speedy!

[Kareem]

And because the people are hispanic they drink...?

Who gives a ****, why cant you just say austin has a drunk driving problem.

[Sinclair]

Because apparently they make up a disproportionate amount of DUI arrests?

The question would be "why is this so?"

[206]

I wonder if he had to count to 10 in English or Spanish.
I'm thinking they tried in Spanish because he probably can't speak English.

[SpabSFW]

Ok, from the article:


"We don't target East Austin," Gonzalez said, "We do go where we're able to arrest the most DWIs — and the downtown area is it."


"Austin police officer Steven Martinez gives a Hispanic driver a sobriety test after pulling him over on East Seventh Street "

The thing about this is that these numbers probably are skewed, because I don't think police cruise around Allendale or Northwest Hills or west Austin looking for DWIs and white people drink too.

Also note that people driving drunk near downtown are certainly going to be noticed more since the police station is on 8th street.

But, overall, if accidents are occuring more in these neighborhoods and I'd bet that the police presence there is due to protecting areas of higher crime activitiy in general, getting these drunk drivers off the road is a plus regardless.

I find it difficult to sympathize with a group of people in a neighborhood whining about people being stopped for drunk-driving. Are they saying they would rather take the chance of having themselves or their loved ones be killed by these fools?

[JAT]

Originally posted by 206
I wonder if he had to count to 10 in English or Spanish.

[RyanEbelhar]

since when is Speedy banned? I see him on tv almost every day on Cartoon Network :\