Democrat senator in Nevada found sleeping at a traffic-light, charged with DUI

A state senator in Nevada was cuffed for DUI after being found passed out at a traffic light.

State Sen. Edgar Flores, a Democrat, was taken into custody around four in the morning on Friday after authorities say they found him sleeping in his vehicle at a red light. The keys were reportedly in the ignition and the vehicle was on at the time, causing officers to suspect that Flores was driving while intoxicated.

Watch the bodycam:

According to documents obtained by Nevada outlet 8NewsNow, the state lawmaker “displayed droopy eyes, slow speech, delayed responses and confusion” and “slight odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath.” He also reportedly admitted to drinking a 24-oz. beer earlier in the evening.

“Flores was later booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a misdemeanor DUI charge. Flores was not charged with a crime and, per state law, was allowed to leave the jail after a blood draw without posting bail or seeing a judge,” the outlet writes.

Flores later spoke to the outlet and expressed regret for the incident, claiming he was just exhausted.

“I am not suggesting that anybody should be driving that tired. It was 100% my fault. I was just way too tired. Driving tired is dangerous, and I should not have been in that position. Luckily, it was just me sleeping, but still, in another scenario, you could be swerving or hit a car, so there are other scenarios where this could have been bad,” he said.

The documents stated that Flores refused a “preliminary breath test,” which is not usually legally admissible, and that he “performed [standard field sobriety tests] unsatisfactorily.” Despite this, the lawmaker is confident that once the test results come back, he will not be facing DUI charges.

“[Flores] fully cooperated with law enforcement and voluntarily submitted to both a breathalyzer and a blood test at the station,” reads a statement. “He was released on his own recognizance. The breathalyzer confirmed a 0.00 BAC, and we are confident the blood test will confirm the same.”

“An 8 News Now investigation from March found Metro’s average blood-alcohol testing turnaround time for that month was 55 days. The department estimates the turnaround time for drug toxicology was 90 days that month,” meaning it could take between two and three months for the results of Flores’s blood test to come back. As such, he is not expected to return to court until January, and prosecutors could potentially negotiate a plea deal that either drops or amends the DUI charge by that time.

Writer/Columnist

Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to BizPac Review.

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