Second Mission police officer arrested for driving while intoxicated

MISSION - A second city police officer was suspended Sunday after he was arrested for driving while intoxicated over the weekend.

Mission police Lt. Gabriel Zuniga was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated on South Padre Island about 10 p.m. Saturday, said Trooper Johnny Hernandez, a local spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Zuniga was pulled over for a traffic violation along Texas Highway 100, north of the Island's main strip, Hernandez said.

The off-duty police officer failed a sobriety test at the scene and was transported to the Port Isabel Police Department, where he refused to give a breath sample, Hernandez said. Zuniga was then taken to the Cameron County Jail in Brownsville.

Zuniga's arrest marks the second intoxicated driving incident involving a Mission police officer this weekend.

Also Saturday, Officer Martin Flores Villarreal, 40, of Mission, was arrested at 2:30 a.m. on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in an unmarked Mission police vehicle. A DPS trooper arrested Flores along U.S. Expressway 83 in San Juan.

Both officers were indefinitely suspended without pay, said Mission police spokesman Lt. Martin Garza. The accused officers have the right to appeal the suspension, Garza said.

"We are embarrassed and certainly apologize to the public for their actions," he said of the accused officers.

"The acts of these couple of officers doesn't reflect on the actions of other officers from the police department."

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Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.