Leaders call for better DWI enforcement after 5 deadly accidents in a week
HOUSTON - Harris County leads the nation for DWI offenses. The most recent case occurred on Thursday night when a man riding his motorized scooter on the sidewalk on Bellaire Boulevard was hit and killed by a drunk driver, becoming the fifth person in the Houston area killed by an impaired driver in less than a week.
20-year-old Eduardo Tovias was killed on Super Bowl Sunday by a drunk driver who had 3 precious DWI charges. Then on Wednesday, three generations of a family were killed in a fiery crash. Ricardo Escobar was at a loss for words when asked about his wife, mother in law, and 3-month-old son. His cousin, Yesenis Aguilar spoke on his behalf.
“They had been married for over 10 years, and they have been struggling for the past 10 years to have a baby, and they had him in October and like he says the baby is now gone," Aguilar said.
“And the day after that there will be another one, and on and on, until we get a grip on what it is we want to accomplish with our criminal justice system," Houston City Council Member, Mike Knox tells FOX 26.
He believes we do not need our laws to be more strict, they just need to be enforced.
“When we let people out without making them put some skin in the game to help them understand that they’ve done something wrong, and they need to be accountable for it, when you do that we just returned a problem back into the community, and that problem doesn’t go away it gets worse…and that’s a failure on the part of society to protect itself from those who refuse to follow the law," he said.
Now all three men responsible for killing five innocent people are behind bars, but it may not be enough for the families that lost so much. All the men charged are expected to make their court appearances next week.