Police arrest a passenger on suspicion of DWI after a crash on Clay Drive

Gallup police arrested a man on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, the Gallup Police Department said, after a grey truck crashed onto a curb on Clay Drive.

On Sept. 6, dispatch received a report of an intoxicated driver at 2907 Clay Drive while an officer was conducting saturation patrol, the department said. Callers reported that the driver was falling out of his grey truck and had crashed onto the curb, and that the person who called was telling the vehicle's occupants not to leave.

Officers requested an ambulance after finding the driver unconscious on the ground, police said. He was taken to a local hospital with injuries.

Witnesses told officers that a passenger, who also appeared intoxicated, moved the truck from where it had crashed, according to the department. The passenger was taken into custody after further investigation and told he was being arrested on suspicion of DWI.

Police said the man denied driving the truck and refused testing. An officer then obtained a search warrant for a blood sample, which a judge signed. The department said the man had four prior DWI offenses, and that the truck was towed from the scene.

He is not named here. It also did not say whether the driver who was taken to the hospital faces any charge.

Drunk-driving arrests in Gallup sit within conditions a single police report does not describe. The county's poverty rate is roughly twice that of the state as a whole, and the off-reservation liquor retail serving a far larger region is concentrated in and around the city.