Justin Bieber jail video shows wavering pop star
Justin Bieber walks unsteadily and even appears to stumble while performing a sobriety test shortly after his January arrest on driving under the influence and other charges, according to police video released Wednesday.
Only a few moments depict Bieber in the roughly 10 hours of video released by Miami-Dade County prosecutors following public records requests from The Associated Press and other news organizations.
The videos were recorded at the Miami Beach Police Department shortly after Bieber and R&B singer Khalil Amir Sharieff were arrested during what officers said was an illegal street drag race in exotic sports cars. They were not charged with drag racing, however.
In one clip, Bieber — dressed in a dark hoodie with the hood over his head, dark baggy shorts and bright red shoes — wavers as he tries to walk carefully and slowly heel to toe. He stumbles slightly as he turns and appears to have his arms out for balance. In a second try he stumbles again, even reaching out to a wall for support, and has an animated face-to-face conversation with a police officer in which both point fingers at each other.
There are only brief glimpses of the pop singer's face and no close-ups in the medium-quality video, which also included no time codes to determine how long he underwent the sobriety tests.
Other brief clips show Bieber being walked through various parts of the police station, and one previously released video depicted the 19-year-old singer being patted down by an officer. None of the videos have any sound.
Sharieff is also depicted in some segments, sitting quietly in a chair and watching Bieber undergo the sobriety test. At one point the two appear to be talking and Sharieff raises a clenched fist.
Several clips were withheld at the request of Bieber's attorneys, including four segments depicting Bieber urinating into a cup for a drug test. Miami-Dade County Judge William Altfield will review those clips private and plans another hearing next week on whether they will be released.
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Bieber has pleaded not guilty to DUI, resisting arrest and driving with an invalid license. Breath tests showed that his blood-alcohol content was below the 0.02 level considered intoxicated for underage drivers, but the urine test found the presence of marijuana and the antidepressant Xanax.
Bieber's attorneys did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the videos.
Police reports described Bieber after his arrest as "excited, talkative, profanity, cooperative, insulting, and cocky" and noted that he had a pronounced odor of alcohol on his breath, bloodshot eyes and a flushed face.
Regarding the marijuana, one officer said he noticed a strong smell of the drug while Bieber was sitting in the back of a police car. The officer asked Bieber about it.
"Yeah, we were smoking all night at the studio," the report quotes Bieber as replying.