Buster
Cops: Florida Woman, 23, Used Periscope To Live Broadcast Her Drunk Driving
Meet Whitney Marie Beall.
The 23-year-old Floridian was arrested Saturday evening after she used the Periscope video app to broadcast herself driving drunk in a Toyota with a flat tire.
At the outset of her broadcast, Beall announced, “Hi, guys...I’m driving home drunk. Let’s see if I get a DUI. In the USA, people! Let’s see if I get a DUI. I don’t think I will. I really don’t, because I live on back roads.”
Videos of Beall’s 25-minute Periscope broadcast--which are filled with curse words--can be found below. At the 11:40 mark of the first clip, Beall strikes a traffic sign, which appears to cause a flat tire.
As she drove around Lakeland, a city outside Tampa, Beall declared, “I am fucking drunk and this is horrible” and “Drunk driving is not cool.” While remarking that, “I’m on a flat tire,” Beall also made sure to note that the song playing on her car stereo was “super hot.”
At one point, after declaring, “I am drunk beyond belief, people,” Beall announced she was putting her seat belt on at a red light. Beall is identified on the Periscope screen as “Whitney” from “Lakeland, Florida, United States.”
Several concerned viewers of Beall’s video stream called 911 “about a possible drunk driver using...Periscope to broadcast herself,” according to the Lakeland Police Department. Cops added that, “numerous text messages were sent to the driver asking her to stop driving before she killed someone or herself.”
As Beall drove, viewers sent Periscope messages asking her to “park that car” and “Get out of the road dumdum.” Other viewers mocked her, writing, “drunk hoe, drunk hoe, it’s off to jail you go” and “hope you hit a tree bitch.” After reading some comments while at a red light, Beall replied, “It’s green now. I’m not gonna listen to a single fucking thing you say.” She later added, “I can’t even believe I’m Periscoping right now. I am!”
While Lakeland cops are not provided access to Periscope by the department, “one officer took the initiative to utilize their personal account in an effort to locate the driver.” In short order, officers found Beall driving her 2015 Toyota Corolla with a flat left front tire.
As police initiated a traffic stop, Beall’s vehicle struck a curb (though the impact did not cause Beall--who was alone in the car--to hit the brakes). After the car later pulled to a stop, officers noted that Beall smelled of alcohol and appeared disoriented. She subsequently failed a series of field sobriety tests and was arrested for drunk driving.
Beall, seen in the above mug shot, was booked into the Polk County jail, from which she was later released on bond.