Woman Charged with 4th OWI After Nearly Running Down Tosa Officer

A Trevor, Wis., woman was arrested and has now been charged with her fourth drunken driving offense after she almost ran over a Wauwatosa police officer who had stopped at roadside to help a motorist whose car was disabled.

Tiffany F. Garcia, 25, of Trevor had previous OWI convictions in 2008, '09 and '12, and was charged again Friday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with her fourth count in less than five years, making it a felony punishable by up to six years in prison.

According to the criminal complaint:

On the night of Nov. 17, a Wauwatosa patrol officer had pulled over behind a disabled car on North Mayfair Road at Walnut Road to help the driver. Her emergency lights were flashing.

She noticed a set of headlights approaching from behind and realized that the driver was bearing down on her in her lane at high speed.

She felt sure the driver was going to ram into her squad car, but when Garcia was only about five car lengths away, she said, she swerved sharply across both the center and left lanes and hit the median curb, blowing a tire.

The officer gave chase and soon caught up, as Garcia was by then driving slowly on the flat. Garcia stopped for the officer and was not uncooperative, but she failed every step of a set of standard field sobriety tests.

Given her record and condition, no attempt was made to take a breath test. Garcia was taken to Wisconsin Heart Hospital for a mandatory blood draw, which was sent to the State Crime Lab. It came back with a blood alcohol concentration of .17.