Intoxicated off-campus

UW-Eau Claire Police arrested an Eau Claire man for first-offense operating while intoxicated near State Street, Saturday.

At about 2 a.m., an officer spotted a four-door sedan swerving across lanes of traffic, heading southbound up the State Street hill, according to a campus police report.

The officer pulled over the car after it turned left onto East Lexington Boulevard.

The officer noticed the driver’s eyes were “red, bloodshot and glassy” and appeared “dazed and confused” after approaching the car. Three male passengers, all Altoona residents, appeared “highly intoxicated,” according to the report.

The driver, a 20-year-old Eau Claire resident, told police he was carting four friends from downtown Eau Claire to Altoona.

After an officer requested the driver take a field sobriety test, he told the officer a “cop in Altoona” had stopped him six weeks prior and he had “blown zeros.”

The officer administered a field sobriety test. Results of a breathalyzer test revealed the driver had a .10 blood-alcohol content.

The officer placed the driver under arrest for first-offense OWI.

While the officer was transporting the man, he asked if people often vomit in the back of squad cars. Sometimes, the officer said. He told the officer some people could not hold their alcohol, and said “I’m holding mine really well.”

Footbridge

Campus police issued an underage drinking citation to a Towers South resident found sleeping near the footbridge early Sunday morning.

At about 3 a.m., while on vehicle patrol on the 100 block of Garfield Avenue, officers spotted a man, 19, seated with his back against the railing on the ramp leading to the footbridge.

Upon contact, officers noticed the man was “sleeping in an upright seated position,” wearing a backpack. An officer shook the man’s arm to wake him up and told him they were checking on his welfare.

The man told officers to “go away” and that he was currently riding the Safe Ride Shuttle Bus.

Officers told the man he was not riding a bus, and asked him to repeat so they knew he understood.

The man identified himself, and officers detected a strong odor of intoxicants, according the report.

Officers found a quarter-full 1.75 liter bottle of Taaka vodka in the man’s backpack. He told officers the alcohol belonged to a friend.

Results of a breathalyzer test revealed the man had a .25 blood-alcohol content. Officers issued the man a citation for underage drinking.

Officers helped the man get to his dorm room and left the scene.

At about 5 p.m. later that day an officer found the man’s payment envelope and citation on the ground on campus. The officer returned the man’s paperwork to his room in Towers Hall.