Driving drunk with 2-year-old gets man one month in jail

A drunk father who crashed his car with his 2-year-old child in the vehicle will serve a month behind bars for DUI and reckless endangerment.

The defendant, Jason Andrew Johnson, 21, entered guilty pleas before General Sessions Judge Larry Ross to charges of reckless endangerment and first-offense DUI for the wreck, which occurred earlier this month on South Chancery Street. He must also pay a $1,778 fine, and forfeit his driver license for one year.

According to police reports, officers were dispatched to a wreck on South Chancery Street but found no one at the scene. A short time later, Johnson arrived with a tow truck, and claimed he was not driving the car. He said someone had stolen the vehicle.

Officers noted the suspect smelled of alcohol and was unsteady on his feet when he was speaking with them. Johnson would go on to admit to driving the car after further questioning by lawmen, registering a .13 blood-alcohol reading at the scene before refusing another test at the jail. The mark of .08 is the point of legal intoxication in Tennessee.

A further investigation, which included speaking with a witness to the accident, revealed Johnson not only fled the scene himself but that he had a child under the age of 3 with him at the time of the crash. The witness said he helped carry the child up a hill from the crash site for the intoxicated father.