By Mark Price
The Charlotte Observer
SEBRING, Fla. — A DUI suspect trying to outrun the cops slowed his van at one point — to offer a cocktail out the window for one of his pursuers, Florida body camera video shows.
It’s happened just after 3 p.m. Saturday, April 19, as that deputy was manning a road block in Sebring, the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office says.
The driver escaped the scene, only to crash “several miles” away near the Sebring Regional Airport, officials said.
He then asked if the arresting deputies “had fun” chasing him, video shows.
“Strange things happen all the time when you’re in law enforcement. This one, however, might make the books,” the sheriff’s office wrote in an April 21 Facebook post.
“We would be very interested to hear from anyone else who has been offered a vodka spritzer by their suspect in the middle of a vehicle pursuit. Or that the same suspect calmly tried to walk away from a crash, puffing on a cigarette, despite being surrounded by deputies.
“Or (yes, it keeps going) that the same suspect asked why he was being arrested and commented to the deputies ‘You guys had fun, though, right?’” the sheriff’s office said.
The driver was stopped only after being hit with a stun gun, knocking him to the pavement, video shows.
Investigators say the chase was initiated after Richard Christopher Smith , 39, took “several items, including several alcoholic beverages” from a store in Sebring, officials said.
“It reported that the man was in a black minivan, driving circles around the store,” the sheriff’s office said.
“When deputies arrived, Smith sped off ... It was during this pursuit when Smith held a can of Ketel One vodka spritz out the window as he drove by a deputy trying to get him to stop, telling the deputy ‘I was just going to give you a drink, that’s it’ as he passed.”
Spike strips were used to flatten his van’s tires after officials said he tried “to ram two patrol vehicles.”
Video shows his van crashed into an SUV during the pursuit, but details of the collision were not released.
Smith, who lives in Miami , was arrested and charged with:
- Two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer
- Battery on a law enforcement officer
- Two counts of resisting arrest
- DUI
- Refusal to submit to a DUI test
- Petit theft
Sebring is about a 95-mile drive southeast from Tampa .
—
©2025 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
