WOMAN: BROWNSVILLE PD LET DAUGHTER DRIVE DRUNK, SLAMS INTO A MOTORCYCLIST, HE REMAINS HOSPITALIZED

By Juan Montoya

We had heard about an accident involving a motorcycle and a drunk driver that had happened Sunday night near Four Corners and called the Brownsville Police Department about it.

When the dispatcher answered, she transferred us to the commander in charge and we asked him about it.

That was on Tuesday, two days after the accident. He said that unless we had the names and the authorization from the parties involved he could not release any information. Instead, he said we should call the local hospitals to see whether they could provide us with information.

But, without knowing the names of the perpetrator or the victim, we got nowhere.

Now we know why.

It seems that the mother of the drunk driver, 21-year-old Stephanie San Miguel, had contacted CHANNEL 5 NEWS on that same day to complain that a Brownsville Police Dept. officer had come upon Stephanie San Miguel arguing with a girl friend on the side of the road after the PD had received a call of two women arguing.

The call came from a resident on McKenzie Road and concerned the loud argument between the two women.

According to non-official sources, when the officer arrived on the scene he found the two women in an agitated state. Witnesses said that The other woman refused to get in the car with the obviously intoxicated woman and asked for a ride home.

The officer then allowed Stephanie San Miguel to get into the car and drive away from the scene.

Not much later, about a mile and a half away at the intersection of Highway 48 and Boca Chica, the woman struck a motorcyclist breaking several bones and requiring his hospitalization. Than, as yet unidentified, is said to be in an area hospital receiving medical treatment for his injuries.

Now her mother Angel Clark wants to know why the officer let her daughter drive drunk.

Clark CHANNEL 5 NEWS that Brownsville police let her daughter, Stephanie San Miguel, drive away Sunday night even though she was under the influence of alcohol. She showed the station's reporter the liquor bottles and beer cans in her daughter's sedan at the impound lot. She said the police officer who came upon the women arguing gave her a warning. Clark said her daughter slammed into a motorcyclist minutes after the officer let her go. She said San Miguel fled the scene.

"It's terrible in the fact that this gentleman got hurt... He could have lost his life. My daughter could have spent life in prison forever," she told the station.
She said she turned her daughter in to police when she found out about the incident.

"He asked her had she been drinking. She admitted, yes, one beer. I feel that should have been a red flag. He should have given her a sobriety test, make sure she is OK, before she got back in the car," Clark said.

When CHANNEL 5 NEWS asked Brownsville police officials if officers give warnings to those who appear to intoxicated, Cmdr. Juan Hernandez said people are not arrested if they pass a field sobriety test and that there was no record of any officer giving San Miguel a warning. He is questioning the officers who were on duty that night.

San Miguel was charged with intoxication assault, failure to stop and render aid and vehicular assault. Clark said her daughter made a poor decision that they'll both have to live with.