Last week, Florida police engaged in a high speed chase with 26 year old Reliford Cooper III – well, with who they thought was Reliford Cooper.
According to police, Reliford ran a stop sign, drove through two ditches and crashed his car into a house in an alleged drunken attempt to evade arrest. Reliford says otherwise.
He says that he wasn’t drunk at all. He was a helpless victim in the entire ordeal because… his dog was driving the car.
Reliford must have known how the events would look to the police and he, and his dog (we assume), took off on foot. Police tracked him down though, which is where he put the blame squarely on his pooch. Unfortunately for Reliford, his dog was nowhere to be found.
This means one of three things:
1. The dog was driving and fled the scene knowing the police wouldn’t believe his human’s absurd claims.
2. The man was driving and the dog was the innocent passenger, but ran away.
3. Reliford totally made the whole thing up and was driving under the influence.
The latter is what police believe happened. One Deputy noted that Reliford had “the strong odor of an alcoholic beverage, as well as an odor of burnt marijuana.”
In fact, no dog has yet to be identified as a PAWson of Interest and there have been no new developments in this case.
We’re glad that no one was hurt in this incident and we hope it serves as a reminder to everyone that we should never drink and drive, whether we’re dogs or not.
