A shuttle driver for Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science was arrested for driving the UM shuttle with about 15 students on board while allegedly under the influence on Monday, Feb. 16, at approximately 3:27 p.m.
Timothy Kowalewski, the shuttle driver, is facing one charge driving under the influence, two charges of DUI with damage to property or person — one for hitting a tree and one for damage to the vehicle — and one charge of refusal to submit a breath test after license suspension.
Maya Dejean, a freshman majoring in marine biology and ecology, takes the shuttle to Virginia Key, driven by Kowalewski, every Monday. Dejean said that Kowalewski is normally very punctual, but he was late picking up the students from the Coral Gables campus and picking them back up from the Key, which was the first indication that something was wrong.
“Once he picked us up to drop us back off at the main campus, his driving was very erratic. It wasn’t, you know, it just wasn’t safe,” Dejean said. “I would say he was swerving a lot. He ended up making a U-turn in the middle of [South Dixie Highway], stopping traffic on both sides of the highway, crashing into trees, poles, just very much risking the lives of all of us and everyone around us.”
After Kowalewski made the U-turn, students on the shuttle began asking if he was all right and in the right state to drive. The students talked to him and encouraged him to pull over near the Trader Joe’s on South Dixie Hwy., engaging in a back-and-forth with the driver about putting the shuttle into park.
“He was trying to first say that he was okay to drive, and at the same time he was driving into the sidewalk,” Dejean said. “So, we kind of just forced him to hit the break and stop. For a good amount of time, he didn’t really put the vehicle in park. He just had his foot on the break.”
Dejean also said that the back window of the shuttle was cracked for the ride back to the Coral Gables campus but that it had not been cracked on the trip to Virginia Key. During the drive, the glass from the shattered window blew into the shuttle.
Students on the shuttle called UMPD and were referred to 911, since the area where the shuttle was stopped was outside of UMPD’s range. Dejean said that police arrived within about 10 minutes and took Kowalewski in an ambulance.
Coral Gables Police Officer Pena was the first to arrive on the scene and described the defendant as “sweating profusely.” Another officer noted the smell of alcohol on his breath and that he was slurring his words.
According to the police report, an officer asked the driver if he had had anything to drink, to which he answered “yes.” When asked when his last drink was, he answered, “This morning, since the store opened.”
Kowalewski declined to participate in any field sobriety exercises and refused to provide a breath sample.
UM sent another shuttle to retrieve the students and bring them back to the Coral Gables campus. Dejean said that about half of the students had already called their friends or Ubers to take them back, and the other half were “scared and hesitant” to get back on a shuttle.
“The incident involving a University of Miami campus shuttle is under further investigation by the Coral Gables Police Department. The safety of our students, faculty and staff members, and the greater University community remains our top priority,” the University said in a statement to The Hurricane.
Dejean said that she feels UM dismissed the severity of the situation. She said that nobody from UM was there to talk to the students when they arrived back on campus and they didn’t receive any communication from the University.
“It felt very dismissed by the school,” she said. “Like, we get alerts on our phone if there’s a car crash or police chase, sometimes not even involving students, and this was very University of Miami involved, like directly involved, and it just felt really pushed to the side.”
The students on the shuttle have been trying to schedule a meeting with the dean of student life since the incident.
The article was updated at 3:06 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 17, to include the statement from the University.