Body camera footage shows a Washington state Democratic candidate admitting she drank wine, refusing sobriety tests, and pleading with God in the back of a patrol car after her truck allegedly plowed into a parked vehicle and damaged five cars.
Krista Perez, who is running for a state House seat in Washington's 29th Legislative District, was arrested for DUI shortly after midnight on August 11 after her 2019 Chevrolet Silverado allegedly struck a parked car on South G Street in Tacoma, Fox News reported. The impact set off a chain reaction that damaged five vehicles in total.
Prosecutors have since charged Perez with DUI and added a refusal enhancement, a stiffer legal consequence that stems from what happened after she arrived at Tacoma Police headquarters. There, police say she failed to produce a usable breath sample after three attempts before the testing machine timed out.
Perez finished first in last month's primary and is set to face incumbent Democratic state Rep. Melanie Morgan in the November general election. Under Washington state law, a DUI charge does not bar someone from serving in the legislature.
The body camera footage, first obtained by The Jason Rantz Show on Seattle Red, captures the roadside exchange between Perez and the responding Tacoma Police officer in detail.
When the officer asked whether she had been in an accident, Perez denied it outright. "I did not," she said. Pressed on what happened, she answered: "I don't know. I've never been in an accident before."
The officer then asked if she had anything to drink. Perez admitted she had consumed alcohol, telling the officer, "I just had some wine while I was there." She said she had been driving from a friend's business on Tacoma Avenue South when the collision occurred.
When the officer asked how big her glass of wine was, Perez deflected: "I think you might need to contact the business." She later rated her own sobriety at four on a scale of zero to ten, with zero meaning completely sober, a self-assessment that put her well below the midpoint, the New York Post reported.
The officer explained the voluntary field sobriety tests plainly:
"So it's a series of tests that I take you through to make sure to see if you're impaired by alcohol, or you're not. Are you okay with doing that? It's totally voluntary."
Perez declined. "Not right now. I'd like to go home first," she said.
The officer did not leave room for ambiguity. "You're not going to go home first. I'm going to tell you that right now, okay?" he told her. "So your options between the test, yes or no, that's going to be determined tonight, right now, not when you go home. So would you like to take these tests or no?"
When Perez asked if she could decline, the officer confirmed the tests were voluntary. She chose not to take them. Under Washington state law, declining roadside sobriety tests is separate from the refusal enhancement that can attach to a chemical test at the station.
After Perez was placed under arrest, she asked the officer to wait. "Hold on. Hold on. One second. Hold on," she said. The footage then shows her in the back of the patrol car, visibly distraught, praying aloud:
"Help me, God. Help me. Help me. Holy Spirit, help me, God."
At Tacoma Police headquarters, officers attempted to obtain a breath sample. The arrest report, cited by The Jason Rantz Show, states that Perez did not provide a usable sample after three attempts before the machine timed out. That failure formed the basis for the refusal enhancement added to her DUI charge.
Whether the three failed attempts reflected active refusal on Perez's part, a machine issue, or some combination remains unclear from available records. Perez has not issued a public statement addressing the arrest or the charges.
The incident is not the first time a Washington state Democrat has faced public scrutiny over alcohol. State House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon acknowledged in February that he drank alcohol before a House Appropriations Committee hearing, the body responsible for the state's spending decisions. Fitzgibbon issued a statement to The Jason Rantz Show saying he "made a poor choice" and took "responsibility for that poor choice."
Despite the DUI charge and the refusal enhancement, Perez remains a candidate. She topped the primary field and will face Morgan, the Democratic incumbent, in the general election. Washington's top-two primary system means both candidates advancing are Democrats, so voters in the 29th District will choose between them regardless of party.
The legal landscape is clear on one point: nothing in state law prevents a person charged with, or even convicted of, DUI from holding a seat in the legislature. Whether voters see it the same way is another question entirely.
Democrats in Washington state have had their share of accountability questions in recent years. The pattern extends beyond the Pacific Northwest, cases like the hit-and-run charge filed against Paul Pelosi after he struck a parked car in Napa County have drawn similar scrutiny about how elected officials and their families handle legal trouble.
In that case, Nancy Pelosi refused to address the incident publicly, with a staffer shutting down reporters' questions. The instinct to avoid accountability rather than face it is familiar enough to count as a pattern.
Perez's silence so far fits the same mold. No public statement. No acknowledgment. No explanation for how a candidate who just won a primary ended up in the back of a patrol car, praying for divine help after allegedly crashing into a row of parked vehicles and telling an officer she rated her own sobriety below the halfway mark.
The body camera footage does not require interpretation. Perez admitted to drinking. She declined the sobriety tests. She could not, or would not, produce a breath sample at the station. Five vehicles sat damaged on South G Street.
Washington's political class has shown a pattern of treating personal misconduct as a manageable communications problem rather than a disqualifying failure. Fitzgibbon drank before a committee hearing and issued a statement. Perez allegedly drove after drinking and has said nothing at all. Accountability in these circles, it seems, runs on a sliding scale, and the scale keeps sliding.
Voters have a way of settling these questions that press releases and silence cannot. November will tell whether the people of the 29th District think a candidate who begged God for help in the back of a squad car deserves the public's trust in Olympia.
