Video released by the Florida Highway Patrol gives details about Mayor Craig Lowe's DUI arrest

Florida Highway Patrol released a video that disclosed more details about Mayor Craig Lowe’s DUI arrest that was made on 21st of March. The video was recorded on Trooper Javon Murphy’s dashboard camera. All the scenes were captured in the video from when Murphy arrived at the scene of the crash around 4 a.m. until he and Mayor Craig Lowe arrived at the Alachua County Jail around 6 a.m.

The recorded video shows Murphy speaking with Alachua County Sheriff’s Office deputies at the accident spot, located near the intersection of Northeast 156th Avenue and Northeast 21st Street. Murphy then asked Lowe some questions about how the accident occurred. Lowe told Murphy the reason of the accident that he’d been awake since 6 a.m. the day before. He was travelling toward the intersection and fell asleep.

While talking to Lowe in the video, Murphy said to Lowe, “I can smell a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from your breath”. Then Murphy asked Lowe if he was drinking earlier. Lowe admitted and told that he had consumed three 12-ounce bottles of beer in Gainesville between around 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. He also told that he was going to La Crosse from Monteocha. After that, Murphy asked Lowe how intoxicated is he feeling to which he answered, “I’m not intoxicated at all”.

After the accident, Murphy asked him why he didn’t call the police, and Lowe replied that he “was fine and [he] didn’t know how long it would take the tow truck to get [there]”.

At 4:40 am in the video, Lowe is seen staggering, losing control and failing a field sobriety test. Murphy arrested him for driving while intoxicated and charged him for DUI and property damage.

The video ends with the scene showing Murphy’s car driving into the jail parking lot. Murphy said to Lowe that if he doesn’t submit a breath sample, his license will be suspended for a year.

The Florida Highway Patrol report shows that Lowe gave his breath sample 4 hours after the crash and the result showed his Blood Alcohol Content level at .069 and .061 percent.

On Thursday, Lowe entered a formal written plea of not guilty in his DUI case. According to the Alachua County Clerk of the Court’s website, Lowe is scheduled for a pretrial conference on 24th of April.

Lowe is set to face Ed Braddy in the April 16 runoff.