By Maayan Schechter
Aiken Standard
AIKEN, S.C. — In newly released dashcam video footage showing the arrest of 11th Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers on Monday night, the chief prosecutor involved in the Justin Craven case tells a S.C. Highway Patrol trooper “some (expletive) ran me off the road.”
Myers was arrested Monday night and charged with driving under the influence; Myers is the prosecutor involved in the case against former North Augusta Department of Public Safety officer Justin Craven, who was charged with fatally shooting an Edgefield County man in February 2014.
On Monday, Highway Patrol responded to the scene of Old Chapin Road and Beech Creek Road in Lexington just before 8 p.m. to investigate a single-vehicle collision, according to a news release provided by Lt. R. Kelley Hughes, with the S.C. Department of Public Safety.
The responding trooper found a 2007 Lexus at the scene that had been traveling west on Old Chapin Road and attempted to make a left turn onto Beech Creek Road, according to a collision report. The vehicle ran off the roadway, striking a utility pole, according to the report.
The incident report said the responding trooper opened the vehicle and could smell a strong odor of alcohol and observed a pistol on the driver’s side floor board.
Troopers went to Myers’ home in Lexington and determined that he was the driver of the Lexus and was found to be driving under the influence at the time of the collision.
In the Highway Patrol video footage provided to the Aiken Standard by Columbia-based newspaper The State, Myers is questioned by the Highway Patrol trooper in his garage.
The trooper asks Myers, “What’s going on?” to which Myers responds, “Well, I’m a little hurt.”
In the video, Myers rejects ambulance help and says he was hit in the nose, telling the trooper “Some (expletive) ran me off the road” and a man he didn’t know picked him up.
“I told him to get me the hell out of here. ... Don’t know who the hell it was,” Myers tells the trooper in the video recording.
Myers is recorded saying in the video that he started drinking around 7 p.m.; however, according to the incident report, Myers said he had only one drink at an establishment in Lexington and hadn’t had anymore to drink after the collision.
Myers was placed under arrest for DUI after failing the standardized field sobriety test.
The field sobriety test is recorded on the video – the trooper asks Myers to place one foot in front of another, and Myers responds he can’t due to multiple back and knee operations.
The trooper then asks Myers to count from one to four using his fingers, and repeatedly, the trooper asks him to complete the task.
At the end of the sobriety test, the trooper asks Myers to say his ABC’s.
On the first try, Myers is unable to complete the task, appearing to laugh afterward, and he stops at the letter “P” during his second try, according to the video footage.
After Myers is placed under arrest and read his Miranda Rights, the trooper tells Myers to spit out his chewing tobacco.
Walking to the trooper’s vehicle, Myers tells the trooper “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
Myers, with the 11th Judicial Circuit, which covers portions of Edgefield, Lexington and Saluda counties, was taken to the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center due to his position.
He was administered a datamaster breath test, resulting in a .09 percent blood alcohol content, above the state’s .08 percent legal limit.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Myers has an attorney; however, Myers’ first court date has been scheduled for 9 a.m. March 21 in Lexington.
Myers’ DUI charge is his second since 2005.
The 70-year-old attorney, first elected chief prosecutor in 1976, was arrested in 2005 for driving under the influence after attending a conference in Asheville, North Carolina. Police told The State that Myers’ blood alcohol level was tested twice, registering .14 and .13 percent. North Carolina’s legal level of alcohol consumption is .08.
Then in 2012, Myers was ticketed for having an open container of alcohol in his car after a Highway Patrol trooper stopped him for suspicion of driving under the influence. In that case, he was given a field sobriety test, issued a ticket and allowed to drive home after a 15-minute traffic stop.
Myers is the listed prosecutor in the case of Justin Craven, the former North Augusta police officer charged with fatally shooting an 68-year-old Edgefield County man in February 2014, who was reportedly unarmed at the time.
In that instance, Craven first pursued Ernest Satterwhite Sr. after suspecting him of drunken driving. After a 13-mile “high speed” chase that started in North Augusta, Satterwhite stopped his car in his driveway in Edgefield County.
Craven reportedly ran up to Satterwhite’s car and fired “three to four” shots through the closed door, telling deputies later that Satterwhite tried to grab his gun and he was in fear for his life.
Myers has maintained Craven acted outside of the law.
Copyright 2016 the Aiken Standard