Police: Man arrested in Saline on drunken driving charges for 7th time
A 46-year-old Wayne man faces his seventh drunken driving charge after he hit two cars Friday evening in Saline and drove away, police said.
An officer was flagged down by two men at 6:46 p.m. Friday at West Michigan Avenue and Hopper, who informed them a man in a gray Pontiac Grand Prix had collided with the cars and then drove away, according to a police report. No one was injured in the collision. The car was located at a nearby Speedway gas station by a separate officer, the report stated.
The report stated the officer had to reach through the window of the car and turn it off because the man attempted to inch away at slow speed. A strong odor of alcohol was coming from the man and he refused to comply with officers’ directions, police said.
The man was pulled out of the car and he played with his cellphone while police attempted to question him, according to the report. His eyes were bloodshot and watery and, when he did speak, his speech was slurred and sometimes incoherent, the report said. Eventually, he grew combative and an officer had to put the man’s arm behind his back and pin him against the car, police said.
After the man calmed down, he was asked to count backward from 86 to 79.
“That’s a lot of damn numbers,” the man told officers, the report said. “Can you count that high? That’s impossible.”
According to the report: He eventually failed. When police asked him to take a breath test, he refused and was placed under arrest on suspicion of operating while intoxicated. The man was turned over to the custody of Huron Valley Ambulance and taken to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital to sober up.
The man was so uncooperative that he was tied to the stretcher by police before HVA personnel could transport him, the report stated.
The man’s driver’s license was suspended and he had not been allowed to have a license since 1991. He has prior drunken driving arrests from April 1991, May 1992, October 1992, May 1993, July 1994 and May 2008, the report stated.
The gray Pontiac Grand Prix had been reported stolen by the man’s girlfriend, who had given it to him so he could get it repaired, police said. In the backseat of the car was a large flat-screen TV, which was also reported stolen. The man’s girlfriend eventually drove to Saline in order to retrieve the TV, but the car was still in the police station parking lot as of Monday afternoon.
The case has been submitted to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office for review.
Kyle Feldscher covers cops and courts for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.
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