Excessive drinking and social media are often a recipe for poor decision making, but a Florida woman may have upped the ante on questionable decisions on Columbus Day weekend. Twenty three-year-old Whitney Beall was driving home in Lakeland when she was pulled over by police and subsequently arrested after failing a field sobriety test. Beall wasn’t pulled over in a routine traffic stop or sobriety checkpoint, though. Authorities located her via her own declarations on social media.
Live broadcasting video of herself while driving drunk via the cellphone mounted on her dashboard, Beall said things like, “I’m super drunk right now, in a place I really don’t want to be in,” and “Please supervise me right now because I’m driving super drunk right now.”
Some followers urged Beall to keep her eyes on the road or to stop driving. Several of the 57 people who were following her called the police to alert them to Beall’s state. An officer was able to log in to the video app Periscope that Beall was using and identify her location from the video. She was arrested and subsequently released on $500 bail.
In the video footage, released by Lakeland police on Friday, in addition to her declarations of intoxication, Beall appears visibly drunk and disoriented. Her car had a flat tire when police located her. Her attorney released a statement that he would be entering a not guilty plea on her behalf.
Allegations of criminal misconduct, especially when the evidence is stacked against you, are a serious matter. An experienced criminal defense attorney will ensure that you receive fair representation.
Source:
‘I’m so drunk,’ driver says on social media before arrest, www.miamiherald.com, AP, 13 Oct 2015
Woman live streams herself while driving drunk, police say, www.cnn.com, Dana Ford, 13 October 2015