Body camera footage released by the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office showed former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and CBS Sports analyst Tony Romo arguing with deputies following his July 23 OWI arrest.
In the footage, when asked where he was coming from, Romo could be seen telling the deputy that he had come from a golf course and was heading to see his grandparents. When the deputy asked how much he had had to drink, Romo said he had consumed “zero” drinks and questioned the officer’s suspicion, asking, “Because I’m coming from a golf course, you think I’m drunk?”
A Milwaukee County Sheriff’s deputy pulled Romo over shortly after 6 p.m. while he was driving southbound on Interstate 43, citing unsafe passing and driving across the marked buffer zone between lanes.
The deputy asked Romo to step out of the vehicle for sobriety testing and Romo instead asked whether he could contact his attorney first. The deputy denied the request several times, telling him he was not permitted to call a lawyer in the middle of an OWI investigation.
Romo continued to ask to contact his attorney, at one point asking if he could make a call because “there’s a plane taking off,” before the deputy informed him he was being detained. Because the stop occurred on a busy bridge during rush hour, the deputy transported Romo to a nearby location to conduct the tests.
At the second location, Romo performed a heel-to-toe walking exercise in bare feet and appeared to struggle with the instructions. When asked whether he understood them, he replied, “We’re not doing that. I hear from all the lawyers, ‘Don’t ever do that.’ So we’re not gonna do that.”
The deputy said she detected the smell of alcohol and observed Romo had red, glassy eyes. The footage also showed deputies locating unopened shooter bottles inside the vehicle.
Romo was then read his rights under Wisconsin’s implied consent law and asked to submit to an evidentiary breath test.
He declined again, telling the deputy, “Like I said, I want my lawyer for the eighth time.” He was placed under arrest and cited for operating while intoxicated, first offense, as well as for refusing to submit to a test for intoxication following the arrest.
He was booked at the Milwaukee County Jail and released around 11 p.m. the same night.
Because Romo declined the breath test, deputies sought and obtained a search warrant for a blood draw to determine his blood alcohol content. The results of that test have not been made public as of the footage’s release. The refusal citation separately puts his driving privileges at risk.
Court records showed he requested a hearing to challenge it, though he could still face a one-year license suspension regardless of the outcome of the OWI charge itself.
Romo is scheduled to appear in court on September 21 at 8:30 a.m.
The former player spent his entire NFL career with the Cowboys, serving as the team’s starting quarterback from 2006 to 2015 and earning four Pro Bowl selections. An injury opened the door for Dak Prescott to take over the starting role in 2016 and Dallas released Romo after that season.
He retired from playing shortly afterward and transitioned directly into broadcasting with CBS.
