SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Police Department on Friday released footage of the arrest of District 8 Councilwoman Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, two weeks after she was pulled over and taken into custody on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
In the video, which is nearly 19 minutes long, Gonzalez denied that she had been drinking at least eight times.
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Gonzalez was pulled over at approximately 11 p.m. on July 24 along Interstate 10 after leaving a downtown club, according to a blood draw warrant.
An SAPD officer initiated a traffic stop on Gonzalez’s vehicle after she was seen driving at a slower speed than other vehicles and failed to remain in a single lane along I-10 at Hildebrand Avenue, records previously obtained by KSAT and the body camera video show.
In the footage, Gonzalez described the directions — and the names of streets — to and near her home multiple times to the officer. KSAT has removed audio of Gonzalez naming those specific streets from SAPD’s body camera video.
When the officer asked Gonzalez if she had been drinking, the footage shows her telling the officer, “I’m good.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Gonzalez told the officer. “I apologize.”
At approximately the 2:15 mark in the video, Gonzalez was then asked to exit the vehicle.
Gonzalez told the officer she just left the Centre Club, a downtown establishment located in the 100 block of East Pecan Street.
“I just want to make sure that you’re OK to drive,” a responding SAPD officer told Gonzalez at the 4:28 mark in the video. “If you’re OK, I’ll get you out of here, OK?”
“I really am perfectly fine to drive,” Gonzalez told the officer. “I apologize for making you stop.”
At the 4:45 mark of the footage, the councilwoman was then asked to perform a series of sobriety tests.
Gonzalez’s first sobriety test
In the first sobriety test, she was asked to follow a green light in the officer’s hand with her eyes and without moving her head.
According to the footage, Gonzalez followed the green light with her eyes, but she also slightly turned her head at least two times.
“Just keep your head still, OK?” the officer told Gonzalez at the 5:04 mark in the video. Gonzalez then nodded in agreement.
The councilwoman then turned her head at least one additional time and then briefly scratched her face.
“Try to keep your head still, OK?” the officer said to Gonzalez at the 5:30 mark of the video. “Almost done.”
“Sure,” Gonzalez said to the officer.
The first test concluded just before the 7:00 mark of SAPD’s body camera footage. The officer then asked Gonzalez if she had any issues walking or standing by herself.
“Not at all,” Gonzalez told the officer.
“So, if I were ask you to walk in a straight line, do you feel like you could do that safely?” the officer asked Gonzalez.
“Yes. Absolutely,” Gonzalez responded.
The officer then asked Gonzalez to stay put while he went back to his patrol vehicle before the beginning of her second sobriety test.
However, before he went back to the SAPD vehicle, the officer asked Gonzalez if she was OK.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Gonzalez said at the 7:27 mark in SAPD’s body camera video.
“OK because you’ve been stumbling a little bit,” the officer said to Gonzalez.
The councilwoman then quickly told the SAPD officer “no” multiple times.
The officer went back to the vehicle and then returned to Gonzalez, who stood on a sidewalk.
‘Why are we doing this?’
At the 8:45 mark in the video, the officer introduced the second sobriety test to Gonzalez. He asked Gonzalez to take nine “heel-to-toe” steps toward the front of the officer’s vehicle, turn around and take nine additional “heel-to-toe” steps in the opposite direction.
“I want you to imagine a straight line from you to the front of my license plate, OK?” the officer told Gonzalez. “You got that?”
“Yes,” Gonzalez said.
As a part of the officer’s three-step demonstration, he showed Gonzalez by putting his foot on the imaginary line, put his right foot in front of his left foot and moved each foot from heel-to-toe.
After Gonzalez was reminded that she would take nine steps instead of three, she was asked if she had any questions before starting the second test.
“I don’t think so,” Gonzalez said at the 11:15 mark in the police body camera video.
“Do you understand my instructions?” the officer asked. “I’m not trying to be, like, funny or anything like that. I’m just trying to make sure you understand before you start.”
“I understand them,” Gonzalez said.
The officer again asked the councilwoman if she had any more questions.
“Um, I guess my questions are (sic), ‘Why are we doing this?’” Gonzalez asked the officer.
“To make sure that you’re safe to operate a motor vehicle on a public roadway,” the officer responded, according to the video. “That’s it. OK?”
“I’ve already articulated that I am,” Gonzalez told the officer at the 11:31 mark of the footage.
“So, just because you’ve articulated that doesn’t mean that I don’t have probable cause to argue against that,” the officer told Gonzalez in the video, in part.
Second sobriety test begins
The responding officer first asked Gonzalez to one step backward. According to video at the 11:48 mark, however, the officer noted that the councilwoman took one step forward.
The officer then gave Gonzalez permission to begin the nine-step “heel-to-toe” sobriety test at the 12:06 mark of the SAPD video.
The first-time councilwoman was seen on the body camera video taking 14 steps.
When she arrived near the front of the police vehicle, Gonzalez froze.
“Do you remember the test or the instructions?” the officer asked Gonzalez as he began to walk closer to her.
Gonzalez then turned around and faced the opposite direction.
“Just like I instructed to you. OK?” the officer said to Gonzalez.
After she made 21 steps in the opposite direction, 12 more than she was asked to make, the responding officer spoke up before Gonzalez completed her 22nd step.
“Ma’am, do you remember how many steps I asked you to take?” the officer asked Gonzalez.
“Nine?” Gonzalez said at the 13:44 mark of the body camera footage.
“OK. Do you know how many you took right now?” the officer asked.
“Probably more?” Gonzalez said.
“Do you know?” the SAPD officer asked her.
“I didn’t count. I’m not gonna lie,” Gonzalez said. “Probably nine?”
“You think you took probably about nine?” the officer asked.
“Yes,” Gonzalez told the officer.
Gonzalez’s third sobriety test
At the 14:00 mark of San Antonio police’s body camera video, the officer asked Gonzalez to stand still on a sidewalk with her feet together and her arms at her side.
For this sobriety test, the officer instructed Gonzalez to take one leg, lift it and keep it airborne for 30 seconds while also keeping the leg approximately six inches off the ground at all times.
According to the 16:00 mark in the footage, Gonzalez began the test. She lifted her right foot, but Gonzalez set that foot down on the ground at least three times within the first 15 seconds.
After Gonzalez moved her right foot next to her left foot, the officer told her to “keep going.”
She dropped her right foot on the ground at least two more times before the officer ended the test.
Fourth test and arrest
The responding officer then asked Gonzalez to walk toward the bumper of his police vehicle when he administered a second test with the green light, her fourth sobriety test overall.
Following the test, the SAPD officer asked Gonzalez two more times if she had any alcohol to drink that night.
Gonzalez, again, told the officer that she didn’t have any drinks.
The body camera video ends with the officer asking Gonzalez to turn around before he placed her under arrest.
Gonzalez’s new statement before traffic stop video emerges
Ahead of SAPD’s body camera footage release on Friday, the councilwoman acknowledged some “regret” from the incident.
“The video does not find me at my finest moment,” Gonzalez’s Aug. 8 statement read, in part. “I regret not being more forthcoming with the officer. I was overwhelmed — nervous, embarrassed, and, to be frank, afraid.”
The councilwoman was booked on a misdemeanor charge of DWI, before she was released on bond July 25.
“Last night, I was pulled over on suspicion of a DUI (DWI). I know as a public servant, we are held to a higher standard, and I failed to meet that standard,” Gonzalez said on July 25, while walking out of jail. “I’m deeply regretful at the disappointment I’ve caused my constituents, my family and my colleagues.”
Earlier this week, Gonzalez publicly acknowledged a 2010 arrest for DWI. In a written statement, she said she was acquitted by a jury and had the record expunged, “as is the right of anyone who is actually innocent.”
Gonzalez avoids censure thus far
Gonzalez is the third San Antonio City Council member arrested for driving while intoxicated in the past three years.
On Nov. 6, 2022, then-District 10 Councilman Clayton Perry was arrested after San Antonio Police investigators said Perry drank 14 drinks in a four-hour period at a North Side bar, drove into another car at an intersection, fled the scene and was later found in his backyard.
On Dec. 29, 2023, current District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte was pulled over after San Antonio police said he was speeding on Northeast Loop 410 and didn’t properly signal a lane change.
While both Perry and Whyte were reprimanded by their fellow councilmembers, Gonzalez, so far, has avoided similar scrutiny from her peers on council.
“Thankfully, she is safe. Thankfully, nobody was injured and she’s going through the legal process and she should be afforded that,” said Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones during a Tuesday appearance on KSAT Q&A.
Jones said she has not ruled out a possible censure, which is akin to a public reprimand, for Gonzalez, but city leaders are waiting for additional information about the arrest.
Earlier this week, KSAT Investigates revealed emails from top Bexar County officials pushing back on Jones’ claim via email that footage of Gonzalez in shackles being magistrated by a judge was “leaked” video.
Jones told KSAT she emailed county leadership after senior city staff, including SAPD Chief William McManus, “had never seen that kind of footage.”
“Dear Mayor Jones: I am in receipt of your email from Friday evening. In regards to your email, I must object to your reference to a ‘leaked video’. It is my understanding that the magistrate court that I assume that you are referencing to is first a public courtroom pursuant to statutory and constitutional laws of the State of Texas and second it is standard operation rule that all proceedings of the magistrate court is live streamed and thus, accessible to the public,” wrote Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, who CC’d county leadership and designated Judge Ron Rangel, the county’s administrative judge, to respond with specific laws regarding public access to courts in Texas.
In a lengthy response to Jones sent via email Monday, Rangel said this was the first complaint the county had received about the live feed.
The judge then provided several prior court cases that guarantee the public’s right to view criminal proceedings.
Jones, during her KSAT Q&A appearance Tuesday night on the 6 O’Clock News, said that even though her and other city leaders were told the county has livestreamed magistration proceedings since 2020, the county has only consistently used the stream over the past two months.
KSAT Investigates has monitored the stream and used footage gathered from it in stories for years.
Gonzalez said Friday she intends to be “accountable” for her actions on July 24.
“I understand that leadership isn’t about being perfect but about being accountable and growing from challenges,” Gonzalez’s statement continued. “I intend to take full accountability for my actions and will work hard every day to represent my constituents as the process moves forward in the justice system.”
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.
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