Tiger Woods’ arrest footage adds a few more strange details to an already odd crash
Police body camera footage released this week shows Tiger Woods telling a sheriff’s deputy that he had just been “talking to the president” after crashing his car in Florida last week. Because apparently even a routine DUI arrest can come with a side plot.
The phone call itself was not recorded, but Woods can be heard saying, “Thank you so much,” as he ended the call and the deputy moved in. It is not clear whether he was referring to President Donald Trump, whose former daughter-in-law, Vanessa Trump, is dating Woods.
Shortly after Woods’ arrest on March 27, Trump was asked about the golfer and told reporters: “I feel so badly. He’s got some difficulty. Very close friend of mine. He’s an amazing person. Amazing man. But some difficulty.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Trump had spoken with Woods after the crash.
Footage shows Woods seeming stunned during arrest
The video shows Woods appearing astonished when he was handcuffed after failing a sobriety test. Additional footage from the back of the patrol car captures the handcuffed golfer hiccupping, yawning and repeatedly seeming to nod off during the roughly 15-minute ride.
Woods told police he was looking at his phone and changing the radio station when his speeding Land Rover clipped the back of a truck and rolled onto its side on a residential road on Jupiter Island. No one was injured.
“I looked down at my phone, and all of a sudden - boom,” Woods told an officer while kneeling on a lawn before his arrest.
Martin County Sheriff’s Deputy Tatiana Levenar then administered a roadside sobriety test and told Woods: “I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, and you’re under an unknown substance, so at this time you’re under arrest for DUI.”
“I’m being arrested?” Woods responded.
“Yes, sir,” Levenar said.
After Woods was handcuffed, police searched his pockets and found two white pills.
“That’s a Norco,” Woods said after an officer pulled them out, referring to a painkiller that contains acetaminophen and the opioid hydrocodone. Authorities later confirmed that Woods was in possession of hydrocodone.
In the body camera footage, Woods told Levenar that he had not been drinking and that he had taken “a few” medications earlier in the day, though parts of his explanation are muted in the released video as he describes some of the drugs.
At the sheriff’s office complex, after Woods was taken into the “DUI room” where drivers are tested for impairment, he said, “I’m not drunk. I’m on a prescription medication,” according to a supplemental sheriff’s office report released on Thursday.
No alcohol, but a refusal that matters anyway
Woods, 50, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to suspicion of driving under the influence. He posted a statement that night saying he was stepping away indefinitely “to seek treatment and focus on my health”.
He agreed to a breathalyser test, which showed no signs of alcohol, but refused a urine test, authorities said. Under a change to Florida law last year, refusing an officer’s request for a breath, blood or urine test became a misdemeanour, even for a first offence.
During the sobriety test, deputies noticed that Woods was limping and wearing a compression sock on his right knee. Woods explained that he had undergone seven back surgeries and more than 20 surgeries on his right leg, and that his ankle seizes up while walking.
