Last Updated on: 2nd March 2015, 09:33 am
How much trash can you really talk about this guy? I mean sure he got hammered and let his 9-year-old drive him to a variety store at 3 in the morning in his work van, but the kid was in a booster seat so at least he’s looking out for her safety, right?
The videotape obtained by The Associated Press shows the van pulling up to the station and walking in with his daughter. He told an unseen clerk that she was driving him around because he had been drinking.
“I got a designated driver,” the man said.
The AP is not naming the father in order to protect the identity of his daughter.
The girl told police that her father had been drinking whiskey all night. She said he had allowed her to drive before.
Those other times must have gone pretty well, since the girl seemed kind of surprised that she was stopped.
“What did you stop me for? I was driving good,” she reportedly asked the officer.
It might have been her first brush with the law, but it certainly wasn’t dad’s, as it turns out.
The father, who told officers he was teaching his daughter to drive, was arrested and refused a Breathalyzer test, Grant said. He was charged with second- and fourth-degree child abuse during an Oct. 10 arraignment. He was ordered to have no contact with his daughter.
He also was charged with being a habitual offender and could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The habitual offender charge stems from convictions on four previous felonies, including receiving and concealing stolen property and unarmed robbery, Grant said.
He was convicted of driving while intoxicated in connection with an October 2007 crash in Wyandotte and had his license restricted for a year, Michigan Secretary of State spokesman Fred Woodhams told the Free Press.