Allegedly Drunk Man Reprimands West Des Moines Cop: Police Blotter

West Des Moines Police Officer Ryan Anderson didn’t say if his feelings were hurt after getting a talking-to by a man he arrested for public intoxication.

Anderson and Officer Aaron Swenson were dispatched to Wistful Vista Drive and South 60th Street at 2:08 a.m. Friday, according to the report on file at the police department.

A vehicle had driven through the road closure barricade in place while South 60th Street is being widened and the road bed was muddy from a recent rain. Anderson said he saw the suspect, later identified as Gustavo Salazar Jr., 22, of Des Moines, standing by the driver’s side door of a vehicle.

Both Salazar and the vehicle were covered in mud, according to the report. He was reportedly swaying back and forth, had bloodshot eyes and smelled of alcohol, but told Anderson that his friend, who was not on the scene, had been driving.

Salazar registered a .218 on a preliminary blood-alcohol content test, according to the report, and Anderson charged Salazar with public intoxication. Anderson reportedly asked him to walk with him back to his police cruiser, but Salazar protested.

“Salazar did not want to walk through the mud, even though he was muddy,” Anderson wrote in his report. When the officer guided him through the area, Salazar reportedly told Anderson he had “disrespected him for making him walk through the mud.”

Later, at the police station when Salazar was told he would be released to a sober party, Anderson reportedly questioned his call to a western Iowa area code.

”Salazar told me to ‘shhh,’ that he was not talking to me,” Anderson said. “Salazar told me I was not No. 1 on his list.”