Galveston City Council member Jason Hardcastle was arrested on suspicion of DWI after a two-vehicle crash. Police say he later physically resisted officers as they tried to execute a warrant for his blood at a hospital.
A Friday-night crash in Galveston turned into a considerably more complicated evening for City Council member Jason Hardcastle. Police say the District 6 representative was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated after a two-vehicle collision on Seawall Boulevard.
No injuries were reported in the crash, which is the best part of this story by a wide margin. Officers nevertheless said they observed signs of possible intoxication while investigating and asked Hardcastle to provide a breath sample.
Police say Hardcastle declined the breath test. Officers then obtained a warrant for a blood specimen, because once a judge has signed paperwork authorizing a blood draw, the evening has generally progressed beyond the “maybe this blows over” stage.
The situation allegedly escalated again at the hospital. According to the Galveston Police Department, Hardcastle physically resisted officers while they attempted to execute the blood-draw warrant, leading to an additional charge of resisting arrest, search or transportation.
Hardcastle was booked into the Galveston County Jail on the DWI allegation and the resisting charge. Bond was listed at $1,000 on the DWI count and $1,500 for resisting, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The charges have not been adjudicated, and publicly available reporting does not establish what the blood test ultimately showed. That distinction matters because suspicion of intoxication, refusal of a breath test and an arrest are not the same thing as a conviction.
Hardcastle’s city council seat is officially nonpartisan, so neither Democrats nor Republicans get to return this one for store credit. He was elected to represent Galveston’s District 6 earlier this year, which means voters got the extremely compressed political timeline of campaign, victory and criminal booking all in the same calendar year.
Local elected officials get arrested often enough that America has developed a depressing amount of practice writing these stories. The unusual piece here is the second act: police say the roadside investigation became a warrant, the warrant became a hospital visit, and the hospital visit became another criminal charge.
There is no indication anyone was hurt, and that keeps this from becoming a much darker story. But from a public-office perspective, “council member allegedly resists court-authorized blood draw after crash” is the sort of sentence that tends to show up at the next meeting whether or not it was on the agenda.
Hardcastle’s attorney says the defense intends to challenge the allegations and the scientific evidence in the case. Until that process plays out, the responsible version of the story is also the wild enough version: a sitting city councilman was arrested after a crash, declined a breath sample, police got a warrant, and officers say he resisted them at the hospital.
Most municipal controversies involve zoning, drainage or somebody’s fence being three inches too tall. Galveston’s District 6 has temporarily moved into the considerably less boring category of criminal court dates.
