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Drunk Miami Beach Cop Injures 2 in South Beach ATV Crash

By Cynthia Hsu, Esq. on July 28, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

A drunk Miami Beach cop was on-duty when he the ATV he was driving crashed into two tourists on the beach earlier this month. Derick Kuilan has since been fired. Another on-duty police officer who was partying with Kuilan at the time, Rolando Gutierrez, was also fired.

Officer Kuilan was originally assigned to a late-night ATV beach patrol, reports Reuters.

For some reason, Kuilan and Gutierrez instead decided to head over to the Clevelander Hotel, reports Reuters. There, the two on-duty police officers were acting so wildly that apparently the women they were mingling with thought they were there for the bachelorette party, though they were both wearing uniforms.

The two cops were having so much fun they even posed for cameras:

(Photo Credit: Reuters)

Kuilan is to the right, and Gutierrez is the officer on the left. Kuilan then took the bachelorette they were partying with for a ride on the back of his ATV, reports The Daily Mail. He was speeding without lights on when he slammed into the two tourists. One was critically injured.

To make matters worse, for whatever reason it took five hours after the accident for police officers to draw Kuilan's blood to determine his alcohol level, according to The Daily Mail. When his blood was finally tested, it was still above the legal limit.

Kuilan and Gutierrez were both fired, and Kuilan was also charged with two counts of reckless driving with serious bodily injury and two counts of DUI with serious bodily injury, The Daily Mail reports.

While driving an ATV on the beach is not the traditional DUI scenario, DUI charges can arise from driving motorcycles, cars, trucks, and boats, depending on the state's laws.

One would think that as a police officer, Kuilan would understand the risks and dangers of operating a vehicle under the influence. And, maybe the drunk Miami Beach cop really should have known better - Derick Kuilan had reportedly been an officer for five years before the DUI.

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