Police report says McGavick ran red light

WASHINGTON – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick ran a red light before being stopped for drunken driving, failed a roadside sobriety test and fell asleep during processing, according to a police report on the 1993 incident.

McGavick, who shocked the state’s political world last week by confessing to the previously unknown incident, had said on his campaign Web site that he “cut a yellow light too close” before being stopped.

The police report, obtained Friday by the Associated Press, says that McGavick registered a 0.17 percent blood alcohol level – twice the current limit of 0.08 percent. McGavick told the arresting officer he had “two, maybe three beers” that night.

The report from the Montgomery County, Md., police, says the responding officer detected a “strong odor” of alcohol after stopping McGavick and a female passenger about 2 a.m. on Nov. 21, 1993.

The police report was first obtained by the Herald of Everett.

“He appears to have been very cooperative,” Montgomery County police spokesman Derek Baliles told the Herald.

McGavick, who is challenging Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., wrote on his Web site that he was driving his now-wife, Gaelynn, home “from several celebrations honoring our new relationship and should not have gotten behind the wheel.”

He was stopped after running a red light in Chevy Chase, Md., just outside Washington, the report said.

“Thankfully, there was no accident, but it still haunts me that I put other people at risk by driving while impaired,” McGavick wrote in his Aug. 24 posting. “All in all, it was and remains a humbling and powerful event in my life.”

McGavick’s spokesman, Elliott Bundy, denied that McGavick had misled voters by saying he had “cut a yellow light” rather than a red one.

“It was based on his memory of the event 13 years ago,” Bundy said, adding that the logical implication of McGavick’s statement is that the signal was red by the time he crossed it.

The police report states the officer observed a car “drive through a steady red signal” at an intersection a couple miles north of the District of Columbia, where McGavick, then 35, worked for the American Insurance Association.

The report described McGavick as having a flushed face, slurred speech and a swaying body. His demeanor was described as polite, cooperative and sleepy.

McGavick failed sobriety tests in which the officer moved his finger side to side and up and down. McGavick did better when he was asked to walk heel-to-toe on a line and stand on one leg.

After the tests, the officer drove McGavick to the Bethesda, Md., police station, where he fell asleep while waiting to have his blood alcohol level measured, the report said. His car, a 1991 Mazda Miata, was towed from the scene.

The citation did not appear on McGavick’s driving record. In Maryland, a legal process known as probation before judgment allows first-time DUI offenders who aren’t involved in an accident to keep their record clean by complying with all court-ordered activities.

McGavick has said that he paid an undetermined fine as well as completed alcohol awareness classes as part of his probation.