A woman recorded a video of herself driving drunk in Lakeland, Florida. The 23-year-old woman is identified as Whitney Beall. She used the app, Periscope, to live stream her potential deadly journey while inside her car as viewers watched helplessly begging her to stop before she hurt herself or someone else.
In a report by WTHR 13 , the woman records herself driving recklessly on video for all to witness. She brazenly drives under the influence and just “hopes” that police won’t stop and give her a DUI. She’s seen running stop signs and being irresponsible behind the wheel. She shook a lot of people up, most of whom put a call in to police.
Beall is seen in the video slurring her speech and shares with viewers her drive through Lakeland. The 23-year-old even dubbed herself, “drunk girl driving.”
“I’m driving home drunk. Let’s see if I get a DUI,” Beall said at one point.
Woman livestreams on PERISCOPE while drunk driving… http://t.co/nfq9fkDpXm
— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) October 12, 2015
As the young woman Periscopes herself driving under the influence, she goes on about how she wasn’t arrested yet and really hopes that it doesn’t happen. When police were alerted to the woman recording a video of herself driving drunk, they weren’t able to access Periscope in order to track her location because it’s not software authorized for them to use. One of the officers used a personal account to locate her. It also helped that Beall was telling on herself, announcing in the footage actual street names that she was passing by. One of them was South Florida Avenue.
Police were able to finally track down the woman by landmarks they saw on Periscope. WFLA 8 reports that authorities caught up with the drunk driver in North Lakeland. When they finally reached her, Beall struck a curb before pulling over. Police say that the woman smelled of alcohol, was disoriented, had glass eyes, appeared foggy, and failed a field sobriety test. Beall refused to take a breathalyzer test and was promptly arrested for driving under the influence.
Sgt. Gary Ross explains that just in the way that Beall was handling her car before parking, it was obvious that she was intoxicated.
“Within minutes we found her driving, flat front tire, she hit the curb again and it was just obvious from that she was intoxicated. She went through the tests, she failed and went to jail.”
The Lakeland Police Department released a statement in the self-recorded drunk driving incident. “The streaming Periscope video highlights the dangers of driving while intoxicated through the eyes of a drunk and irresponsible young adult. The Lakeland Police Department is extremely thankful that this did not result in an accident and no one was injured as a result of her poor decision.” When Beall was recording herself under the influence while driving her vehicle, she was amazed that she had 57 people interested in what she was doing.
Unsurprisingly, the intoxicated woman had been bar-hopping earlier in town. For whatever reason, she thought it was a cool idea to break out Periscope and start a recording session. Conversely, she said in the footage that what she was doing, in fact, was not a cool thing.
DUI Suspect Broadcasts Her Wild Ride On Periscope: Police http://t.co/qb1hCek7cT
— Linda Yelver (@LindaYelver) October 12, 2015
What could have easily happened during Beall’s rampage was she could have struck and killed anyone. A young child could have darted onto the road, a disoriented adult, or an animal might have tried crossing the road, causing Beall to swerve and seriously injure herself, or die.
On Monday, the woman who used Periscope to video record her drunk driving behavior admitted that what she did was a huge mistake. Her mother is reportedly hiring an attorney.
[Photo Credit: Periscope screenshot]
