HURON COUNTY, Ohio (WJW) – A newly released video from the Ohio State Highway Patrol is shedding light on a crash involving a trooper who was allegedly intoxicated while on duty.
Video from the dash camera of Trooper Tashawna Berry shows she was traveling along State Route 601 outside Norwalk just after 7 p.m. on Saturday, when her cruiser suddenly went off side of the road and hit a utility pole and a tree.
After the crash, Berry is heard telling a dispatcher, “19 to 18, I just struck a tree.”
A fellow trooper arriving at the scene of the crash was alerted by a Huron County sheriff’s deputy that he detected the smell of alcoholic beverages on Berry’s breath.
“It could just be her perfume but I can smell it,” said the deputy.
“Like 100 percent?” the trooper asked.
“Yeah,” the deputy responded.
Although her cruiser was heavily damaged in the crash, the 37-year-old Berry told the trooper and paramedics that she was not injured.
“No, I don’t need to be checked out, I’m good. I feel fine,” she said.
Berry initially blamed the crash on icy conditions on the road. She later admitted to having drinks earlier in the day and told the trooper that she was then called into work for emergency duty.
On the video, she said, “Yeah, for the Turnpike, they had like a thousand crashes tonight.”
Berry initially said she would submit to field sobriety tests once a supervisor arrived at the scene but ultimately refused all testing.
Berry, who has been with the highway patrol since 2014, would later be charged with OVI, failure to control, improper handling of a firearm and driving while texting.
A witness to the crash told investigators that he thought the trooper was having a medical emergency and concluded she is fortunate that she was not seriously injured and did not harm anyone else.
After learning that Berry was allegedly drunk on duty at the time of the crash, supervisors immediately removed her from duty and placed her on administrative leave without pay.
Court records indicate that because of her refusal to be tested for alcohol, Berry’s driver license has been automatically suspended for one year.
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