A bus driver for the University of Miami’s student shuttle was arrested on DUI charges after a crash in Coral Gables, police said.
Timothy Kowalewski, 45, was arrested Monday on charges of driving under the influence, DUI with damage to property or person, and refusal to submit to a breath test, an arrest report said.
A student who was on the bus told NBC6 that he and other students were on the bus going between campuses when they noticed the driver going erratically and swerving before he crashed into roadway objects and a tree.
The student recorded video of the driver being confronted after he stopped the bus.
“Are you drunk?” one student asks in the video.
“No, I’m fine,” the driver responds.
According to the report, Coral Gables Police responded to the crash in the 300 block of U.S. 1 and found Kowalewski in the driver’s seat of the University of Miami bus “sweating profusely.”
An officer asked Kowalewski if he’d had anything to drink and he replied yes, and asked the last time he’d had a drink, Kowalewski responded “this morning, since the store opened,” the report said.
Kowalewski told the officer he didn’t have a recollection of the crash and spontaneously said “I woke up this morning and decided alcohol,” the report said.
The officer noted that Kowalewski had red, watery eyes and the smell of alcohol on his breath, the report said.
Kowalewski was also “heavily slurring his words” and was unsteady on his feet, losing his balance and swaying side-to-side while standing, the report said.
The officer requested that Kowalewski perform field sobriety exercises but he refused, and was placed under arrest, the report said.
After he was brought to police headquarters, he also refused to provide a breath sample, the report said.
Kowalewski was taken to a local hospital before he was booked into jail.
NBC6 has reached out to the University of Miami and was awaiting a response.
