A 48-year-old Chiefland man could face criminal charges after videos from a witness showed him behind the wheel of a vehicle involved in a hit-and-run traffic incident.
Multiple Holmes Beach police officers responded around 4:50 a.m. July 1 to a crash in the 600 block of Manatee Avenue and found a vehicle crashed on top of a landscaping boulder and into a standing tree.
The vehicle was unoccupied with an empty beer bottle with an Anchor Inn koozie on the ground nearby and blood on the driver side.
Officers searched the area and found the Chiefland man, the co-registered owner of the vehicle, half naked, moaning and injured in a wooded area about 100 yards from the crash.
The man, who displayed signs of impairment, denied driving the vehicle.
He declined a medical evaluation but an officer placed the man in police custody under the Marchman Act and transported him to the HCA Florida Blake Hospital in Bradenton.
During a search of the vehicle, police found 19.6 grams of THC gummies and 3.1 grams of marijuana.
Later, an officer spoke with a bartender at the Anchor Inn, 3007 Gulf Drive, who identified the man as a patron who had been drinking at the bar the night before and provided videos showing the man enter his vehicle and drive off in the direction of the crash.
An officer submitted a capias request to the state attorney’s office for potential criminal charges against the man for driving under the influence of alcohol, leaving the scene of a crash with property damage and possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana.