Deputy: I goofed when arresting mayor's daughter

Under questioning in the first day of the mayor's daughter's DWI trial, the Harris County deputy who arrested Elena White testified yesterday that he made some mistakes, including letting another deputy constable block the view from the camera mounted in his patrol car while White was taking field sobriety tests. Pct. 5 Deputy Constable Nicholas Derkowski, who had been on the force for about two months when he arrested White on Memorial Drive on Aug. 1, also said he didn't include another deputy constable who watched White take the tests as a witness on the arrest report, which he called "a poor report."

Jurors watched the video from the arrest scene yesterday, which the Chronicle reports shows White complying with Derkowski's requests and politely answering his questions. Derkowski said he pulled White over after he saw her weaving between lanes on Memorial Drive and driving without headlights; he asked her if she had been drinking and she said no. According to KHOU, Derkowski said he smelled an alcoholic beverage on her breath and that his patrol car smelled like alcohol after he put White in it. She failed the field sobriety tests — possibly because she wasn't wearing shoes, Derkowski testified — and refused to take a Breathalyzer test. At the time, White said the headlights were off because she was used to having them come on automatically, but they didn't in the car she was driving. (White never told Derkowski she was the mayor's daughter, and he said he didn't learn it until hours later.)

White's attorney, Rusty Hardin, told Channel 11 that Mayor Bill White didn't attend the trial because his doing so would have shifted all the attention to him, and he wants Elena White to be tried "like a normal 17-year-old"— a normal 17-year-old who can afford to hire Rusty Hardin, of course. Mayor White initially said Elena would be in trouble for breaking house rules, but then said he thought the police might have made a mistake in the arrest; his wife, Andrea, said the police video doesn't seem to show that Elena was drunk when arrested. The trial is expected to continue through tomorrow.