Too Many Border Patrol DUIs
The U.S. Border Patrol is worried enough about its agents driving while under the influence that it is now mandating all agents attend an alcohol awareness program beginning in January.
One anonymous agent told reporters that agents are arriving at work drunk, according to Channel 10 News in San Diego which broke the news of an internal memo about the DUI concerns.
According to the memo, signed by Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher, about two agents a week are being arrested on driving under the influence charges.
In one case in South Texas last September, police found 29-year old agent Pedro Villarreal asleep in his car. He refused a DUI test and was arrested. In a May 2012 case, an off-duty Border Patrol agent was arrested on DUI charges in Brownsville after crashing his car into a taco restaurant, injuring two women. Also in 2012, another Border Patrol agent pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter after he crashed while texting and driving drunkenly, leading to a man's death.
In the Tucson Sector, the situation has actually improved. Ten agents were arrested last fiscal year on DUI charges, compared to 22 the year before that.
The Border Patrol is the largest law enforcement group in the country with 21,000 agents. The mandatory training for agents is named for Michael V. Gallagher, a Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent who was killed by a drunken driver in 2010.
