LAKELAND, Fla. — A 23-year-old woman faces jail time after allegedly live streaming video of herself drunk driving, hitting a road sign and slurring her speech before she was pulled over and arrested.
On Saturday, viewers of the live-streaming app Periscope called the Lakeland Police Department in Florida to report that 23-year-old Whitney Beall was driving drunk and streaming her drive live.
Officers quickly started following her stream — which was streamed publicly worldwide — and saw Beall with blurry eyes, slurred speech and apparently admitting she was drunk.
Beall had even allegedly hit a road sign and was driving with a flat tire.
“I’m so f—ing drunk,” Beall says in a raw video of theevent posted by FOX 13.
WARNING: Video contains graphic language
Her Persicope video was allegedly titled “Drunk girl driving.”
“I really hope I don’t get a DUI,” Beall later says. “I know f—ing idea where I’m going right now.”
Many viewers of the stream encouraged her to get off the road.
“Stop for us,” one Periscope viewer said.
“You’ll get there faster if you stop and get out and walk,” another viewer said.
Lakeland police officers attempted to locate Beall, but could not obtain an exact location. After some time, officers watching the live stream were able to determine her location by surrounding landmarks, police said.
As police drove to Beall’s location and pulled her over, she allegedly hit a curb. Police smelled booze on her breath immediately, officers said, and she failed to pass a field sobriety test. Beall refused to take a breathalyzer test, and was arrested under suspicion of DUI. She was taken to Polk County Jail.
No one was injured in the incident.
Lakeland police said the live-streaming event shows the “dangers of driving while intoxicated through the eyes of a drunk and irresponsible young adult.”
