In 1995, a 31-year-old teacher named Tim Walz was pulled over for speeding at night. He ended up being arrested for drunk driving and sent to a county jail.
Now that man, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, is running to become vice president of the United States, bringing the incident from nearly 30 years ago back into the spotlight.
While a drunk driving arrest in 1995 may have been a run-of-the-mill affair, the changing narrative surrounding the incident has raised questions. DailyMail.com spoke to the Nebraska state trooper who pulled Walz over all those years ago to hear his version of what happened.
“Anybody can be charged with DUI. DUI is a mistake. You shouldn’t be driving under the influence, but anybody can make that mistake. It’s what you do with it that’s important,” said retired police officer Steve Rasgorshek. “At first I thought, ‘Well, OK. He stopped drinking, good for him,’ and then I started hearing, ‘Well, he had this excuse.'”
Tim Walz was booked into the Dawes County Jail in September 1995 after being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.
According to court documents, Rasgorshek pulled over Walz on Sept. 23, 1995, after he clocked the silver Mazda going 96 miles per hour in a 55 zone.
Rasgorshek described the incident as being like being in “the middle of nowhere in Nebraska” and recalled a car speeding north from Alliance. He turned around to chase it.
When Walz was taken into custody, there was a strong odor of alcohol. Walz failed the field sobriety test. He also failed the preliminary breathalyzer test and was taken to the hospital for a blood test. He was booked into the Dawes County Jail shortly before 3 a.m.
“He was arrested at 9:30 at night and I didn’t book him in until 2:45 in the morning,” Rasgorshek said.
“It shouldn’t have taken that long, but I remember having to wait a long time for a tow truck to come, and then I think another cop finally came and sat on the vehicle because we didn’t arrest someone and left their vehicle on the side of the road,” he said.
Police officer Steve Rasgorshek in 2001 with then-Senator Chuck Hagel
‘Then I would have had to drive an hour to the hospital to have blood drawn because the poison control didn’t work at the police station, and then I would have had to drive back an hour.’
Walz’s blood alcohol level was .128, documents show, but Rasgorshek said it would have been higher when he was initially stopped.
“There was nothing significant, he wasn’t any idiot, as far as I remember,” Rasgorshek said.
“I don’t think it was anything more than a DUI arrest. I didn’t have to fight him,” she added.
Documents show Walz ended up in court before Judge James Hansen on March 13, 1996, where he pleaded guilty to reckless driving.
In the court transcript, Walz’s attorney told the judge that his client was initially clocked traveling 70 miles per hour in the 55 zone, but then thought someone was chasing him.
“The officer did not turn on his red lights … and someone was coming up behind him very quickly and he didn’t know what he was doing, so he sped up to try to get away, fearing someone was chasing him,” attorney Russell Hartford said in the transcript.
“And lo and behold, behind him was a state trooper, so the faster he was going, the faster the state trooper was going,” Hartford said. He acknowledged that when the trooper turned on the red lights, “the speed was quite excessive” and “way over the speed limit.”
Rasgorshek did not deny this. He said he needed to turn around, catch up with the others and assess the situation to see if he should call for reinforcements before arresting anyone.
“Of course he didn’t have his lights on. I never turn my lights on until I’m behind the person I want to stop. That makes sense, I was trying to catch up to him and he just took off,” Rasgorshek said.
Walz’s attorney acknowledged that his client had been drinking in court and asked the judge to fine him.
A picture of Tim Walz from when he was a teacher. Court documents show Walz tried to resign after his arrest for drunk driving in 1995, but the school principal talked him out of it.
Walz’s attorney noted that Walz was a teacher at Alliance High School at the time. Hartford said he felt “really bad” about it and “really disappointed” in himself.
“He immediately reported the incident to his principal. He resigned from all of his extracurricular duties at the high school, which included some coaching responsibilities, I believe,” his attorney said.
“He also offered to resign from his teaching position because he felt so bad,” he added, saying Walz felt he had let himself and his students down.
“Fortunately, the principal talked him out of quitting school,” Hartford added.
According to the court transcript, Walz began using his experience as a lesson about the bad things that can happen if you drink and drive.
In the end, he lost his license for ninety days and was fined $200 plus court costs.
“I hope you learned from this and can share it with your students,” Judge Hansen said.
Walz no longer drinks alcohol and noted the DUI offense he committed in 1995 before resigning. It might have been forgotten if history hadn’t changed when Walz ran for office.
During his first congressional campaign in 2006, Republicans highlighted Walz’s arrest. At the time, his campaign manager, Kerry Greeley, told the Rochester Post Bulletin that hearing loss played a role in the case.
“He couldn’t understand what the officer was saying to him,” Greeley told the newspaper.
His spokesman was quoted by the NUJournal as saying the officer refused to speak.
In 2005, ten years later, Walz underwent surgery for chronic ear damage, but that’s not how Rasgorshek remembered the incident.
“I don’t remember him saying ‘I have hearing problems’. I can assure you that if he had said that, I would have spoken up, but I can also assure you that I am not a quiet person,” Rasgorshek said.
“If you allow people to say something like that about something that happened 29 years ago, you should acknowledge it, address it and it would be over,” he said.
Democratic candidate Tim Walz in 2018 before being elected governor of Minnesota
During his first run for Minnesota governor, the Star Tribune reported that Walz had been watching college football with friends the night of his arrest.
In the report, Walz’s wife, Gwen, said she told her husband, “You can’t make stupid decisions.”