Basically he turned getting booked into a photo op. He cherry-picked someone to arrest him who would have those numbers in front. You Republicans may think that all that matters is whether you have a nice smile, but us Democrats care about laws.
He went to the largest county in Texas (one which he happens to represent in part). Harris County has about 1/6 of the Texas population, and as an urban county probably has 1/4 to 1/5 of the bookings in Texas. So having a booking photo without a number is the norm for a large part of the state. I'd guess that everything (photograph, fingerprints, physical information, case number, etc.) is all kept as a digital record, so there simply is no
professional reason to have a grainy black and white phote with a number sign included in the picture.
Though I do think it was a nice touch for the Maui Police to require DUI arrestees to place the case numbers on their own sign.
