HIC, WAS THAT A POLICE CAR?, HIC

A fitting finale for this year’s Galveston County Fair.

DRUNK DRIVER (WITH 18 LICENSE SUSPENSIONS) SENDS COPS SCRAMBLING, SMAHES PATROL CAR
By Richard Connelly

Houston Press Hair Balls
April 18, 2011

The Galveston County Fair & Rodeo is over, but it went out with a bang.

This year's event saw one carnie arrested for being a sex offender and a ride operator nabbed for possessing three bags of pills, a bag of weed and brass knuckles.

Enough for one year? No. There had to be a big finale, and it came about 1:30 early Sunday morning, the last day of the fair.

An obviously intoxicated driver weaved out of one of the two exits, police say, and when they tried to stop him he sped along Highway 6, taking him past the other exit, where there was a stationary police car, lights flashing, and cops directing traffic.

Naturally, the dude headed right for it.

Sure, it involved going westbound on some eastbound lanes, but the unidentified driver did whatever it took -- sending the cops running for their lives and smashing into the patrol car.

He then headed for a culvert -- where two other cops happened to be standing, Hitchcock police chief Clay Kennelly tells Hair Balls. They, too, jumped for their lives.

The culvert brought an end to the evening's festivities.

Investigation showed the 40-year-old driver had 18 license suspensions to his name. That sounded high to us, but Kennelly said he wouldn't have been surprised if it was the 21-year-old passenger who had that many.

Whenever someone misses a payment or a step in the process of rectifying an offense, he says, the license is automatically suspended and then reinstated whenever the situation is corrected.

The driver's license was under a current suspension, part of the reason he was arrested.

"You're not supposed to be driving and you're out here driving," he says. "Now I can almost see it if you're going back to work, but you're not even going to work, you're just here cruising around so you're upset because you're going to jail? Well, you're going to jail because the state of Texas says you can't drive."

The driver was taken to a hospital and a blood sample was obtained. Authorities are awaiting the result before filing DWI charges, although Kennelly says the man was "obviously intoxicated."