SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio police officer facing a felony driving while intoxicated charge was belligerent, combative and profane at the scene of an April drunk-driving crash, according to a DWI report obtained by the KSAT 12 Defenders.
Gena Rodriguez, 39, an 11-year San Antonio Police Department veteran assigned to the department's West substation, remains on paid administrative leave more than two months after officers said she caused a chain-reaction crash along Loop 1604 at Culebra Road on April 13 while driving intoxicated with three of her children in the car.
Rodriguez, who did not respond to a request for comment left at her far West Side home, appeared in court earlier this week for a pretrial hearing.
Although police believe she was driving intoxicated with three children in the car under the age of 10, Rodriguez currently faces a single felony count of driving while intoxicated with a passenger under 15.
"I think that she represented the bad portion of what they see on the street themselves. She has seen first-hand what drunk driving accidents can cause," said Mary McClairty, who was one of the other drivers involved in the wreck.
Although the crash report indicates three vehicles were involved, McClairty said the truck she was driving slammed into a fourth vehicle after Rodriguez's Nissan Altima rear-ended a truck behind McClairty.
McClairty said the fourth vehicle left the scene before officers arrived and likely did not sustain heavy damage.
No one was seriously injured at the scene, according to a previous incident report.
Rodriguez's Altima suffered a severely damaged engine that was "crushed to one-half its normal size," according to a DWI report.
Pictures of the crash scene provided by McClairty show fluid from the Altima spilled all over the road.
"On the scene, I mean, in my opinion, she was a complete mess," McClairty said. "She had the sunken-in eyes, where you can tell she had been drinking for awhile. She had the zombie look that you get when under the influence of something pretty heavy."
McClairty said she approached Rodriguez's wrecked vehicle after hearing kids inside it crying.
"When I tried to help her, she explicitly told me to get away from her and to leave her alone," McClairty said.
The DWI report stated Rodriguez had a strong odor of intoxicants on her breath, argued with emergency medical services personnel at the scene and was uncooperative and disrespectful to officers, including a supervisor assigned to her own substation.
The report also stated Rodriguez was placed in the back of a patrol vehicle for her own safety, then began to bang on its windows with her fists.
The off-duty officer then had to be dragged from the back of the vehicle for a field sobriety test, telling the officer conducting the test "Stop being an (expletive)" and, "I'm SAPD, too. Shut up. I don't give a (expletive)."
A clear plastic Starbucks cup one-quarter full of clear liquid that had the odor of vodka was confiscated by police from inside Rodriguez's purse, according to the report.
SAPD has declined to release body camera and vehicle dash camera footage of the arrest until after the case is prosecuted.
McClairty declined to be taken to a hospital at the scene only to then check herself into an emergency room the following day. She said she was diagnosed with multiple thoracic sprains and had to temporarily shut down her event-planning business while going through physical therapy and while on powerful pain medication.
While Rodriguez's insurance covered repairs to the truck McClairty was driving, the crash victim said the insurance company has yet to cover any of her mounting medical bills.
McClairty said the emergency room bill alone is $9,000. She has started a GoFundMe page to help cover her medical expenses from the crash.
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