On the video, Whitney Beall can be heard saying, “I am really drunk… pfff”.
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While this was a reckless and stupid act that will have many tutting at social media’s influence, if it wasn’t for the use of Periscope police officers may not have caught Beall before something more serious happened, at all.
The tape, which was shared on the Twitter-owned video site Periscope, shows her running red lights and moaning that she’s lost. Lakeland received a number of phone calls from concerned viewers reporting her for drunk driving. Two Periscope users eventually got the woman off the rode, calling 911 to alert authorities there was an intoxicated driver on the rode. During the broadcast, Beall admitted several times that she was “so fucking drunk” and that she had no idea where she was. She also mentioned not being too sure where she was and that she was driving on a flat tire.
“After 30 years of law enforcement I hadn’t seen anything like this before.”
As the 911 caller was redirected to police dispatch, the woman turned on and off the live streaming session several times.
An officer logged onto the service and located Beall’s auto.
It took 20 minutes for the police to find her. One of the responding police officers said that finding Beall was like finding a needle in a haystack.
Based on what the officer could observe, and landmarks in the area from the streaming video, LPD officers located the driver eastbound on Carpenters Way. As they approached her vehicle, officers said they could smell alcohol.
And soon cops in the American city of Lakeland, Florida, found the sozzled motorist in her new four-door Toyota Corolla. They said she failed a field sobriety test and was arrested and charged with DUI. She was arrested on DUI charges and taken to jail.
When they tried to initiate a traffic stop, Beall hit a curb and didn’t brake after the fact.
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A Florida woman used Periscope to video broadcast her heavy partying Friday night and then narrated her drunken drive home.
