Tweet
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia's blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit for drunken driving during his DUI arrest earlier this month, and he admitted to officers "I have a buzz,'' according to police records released Thursday.
Garcia, 33, was driving a white Lincoln Navigator at 1:50 a.m. on Jan. 14 in the company of two young women -- ages 18 and 20 -- and a 34-year-old man when San Jose State University police pulled him over near campus. Officers said he'd failed to stop at a red light until he'd driven into an intersection, failed to yield to on-coming traffic and had been weaving so badly he nearly clipped a curve. Garcia, a San Jose resident, told officers he had begun drinking at a Sharks hockey game earlier in the evening and continued afterward at a campus brew pub. He said he "had a few'' vodkas with cranberry juice and soda.
After the stop in a Jack in the Box parking lot, some male friends traveling in another car became angry, SJSU police Sgt. Ray Celano said in his report. One friend identified as Sean Johnson asked officers to let Garcia go. "Do you know who that is?" he asked. An unidentified man shouted: "Garcia wasn't driving. It was the girl!''
But Garcia remained calm and cooperative, police said, even as some 20 onlookers and friends began chanting "Let Garcia go!" The two campus officers called for backup help, fearing "the potential for the crowd to turn into a riot or lynching,'' wrote SJSU Officer David Anderson, who stopped Garcia.
more
Garcia, 33, was driving a white Lincoln Navigator at 1:50 a.m. on Jan. 14 in the company of two young women -- ages 18 and 20 -- and a 34-year-old man when San Jose State University police pulled him over near campus. Officers said he'd failed to stop at a red light until he'd driven into an intersection, failed to yield to on-coming traffic and had been weaving so badly he nearly clipped a curve. Garcia, a San Jose resident, told officers he had begun drinking at a Sharks hockey game earlier in the evening and continued afterward at a campus brew pub. He said he "had a few'' vodkas with cranberry juice and soda.
After the stop in a Jack in the Box parking lot, some male friends traveling in another car became angry, SJSU police Sgt. Ray Celano said in his report. One friend identified as Sean Johnson asked officers to let Garcia go. "Do you know who that is?" he asked. An unidentified man shouted: "Garcia wasn't driving. It was the girl!''
But Garcia remained calm and cooperative, police said, even as some 20 onlookers and friends began chanting "Let Garcia go!" The two campus officers called for backup help, fearing "the potential for the crowd to turn into a riot or lynching,'' wrote SJSU Officer David Anderson, who stopped Garcia.
more
