Deputy's Encounter With Wrong-Way Driver Ends With Arrest

TAMPA, FL — A Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputy out on patrol Thursday morning along West Waters Avenue came across a sight that’s become all too familiar on Tampa Bay area roads as of late.

As the deputy was heading eastbound in the inside travel lane around 12:53 a.m., he spotted a 2015 Volkswagen Passat heading west in the eastbound lanes, the sheriff’s office wrote in an email to media. The deputy switched on his emergency equipment, took evasive actions to avoid the oncoming car and then made a U-turn to go after the wrong-way vehicle, the email said.

When the deputy caught up with the motorist, he detected signs of impairment, the sheriff’s office said. The woman behind the wheel was “was unsteady on her feet, her eyes were bloodshot and glassy, her speech was slurred and a distinct odor of alcohol beverage was emitting from her breath,” the email noted.

The driver, identified as Christy Walters, 42, of St. Petersburg provided two breath samples that showed blood alcohol levels of 0.221 and 0.224, the sheriff’s office said.

Walters was ultimately booked in the Hillsborough County jail on a DUI charge.

Wrong-way driving incidents have been making headlines throughout the Tampa Bay area following the recent death of Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Deputy John Kotfila Jr. on the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway. On Tuesday night, a Temple Terrace Police officer was injured in a wrong-way driving incident in Dade City.

Booking photo courtesy of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office