Man Nabbed Twice In Hours For DUI
Blew Through Checkpoint At 120 MPH, Officials Say
POSTED: 9:33 pm MST September 7,
2009
UPDATED: 11:37 am MST September 8,
2009
MESA, Ariz. -- DUI checkpoints are a Labor Day tradition in Mesa."We choose this location every year because it's a main thoroughfare back into the city from recreation areas," Mesa Police Sgt. Ed Wessing said.Officers check each vehicle driving southbound on Power Road. It was a routine day until one man blew through the checkpoint. . The driver, identified as Joseph Cummings, had just been stopped on suspicion of drunken driving a couple hours earlier by Maricopa County sheriff's deputies. According to MCSO, a two-deputy team pulled Cummings over at around 3:30 on Bush Highway and Granite Reef Dam Road.Officials said he tested more than twice the legal limit, enough to fall into the "extreme DUI" category.Deputies said they took him to a booking station and wrote him a ticket. Deputies said since Cummings was cooperative and a first- time offender, they let him go and dropped him off a few miles from where his car sat waiting to be towed.When those deputies checked back about 20 minutes later, the car was gone. That same car blew through the checkpoint just a mile and a half up the road, less than two hours later, Mesa police said.Officers said they chased Cummings down the 202 Red Mountain at speeds topping 120 miles per hour. This time, he went straight to jail.
He was booked on charges of unlawful flight from a law enforcement vehicle, endangerment, misdemeanor count of DUI-liquor, drugs, vapors and a misdemeanor count of DUI with a BAC of 0.08 or more.
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