San Antonio council member arrested in hit-and-run
One of the members of the San Antonio City Council, Clayton Perry, was arrested Thursday afternoon for allegedly fleeing the scene of an auto accident he caused Sunday night.
Perry, 67, turned himself in at the Bexar County Courthouse for the misdemeanor charge. After posting a $2,000 bond, he told reporters he won’t resign from the office he’s held since 2017.
‘I’m going to trust in the process,’ he said.
About four minutes before the car crash, San Antonio police received a call from a manager at the Bill Miller Bar-B-Q on Thousand Oaks Drive. He reported that Perry had come through the drive-thru ‘slurring his speech and causing a disturbance,’ according to an arrest affidavit.
The manager reported the ‘nervous male will be drinking and driving’ in a black Jeep Wrangler and that he was ‘easily recognizable’ due to his status as a political figure, according to the affidavit.
About 1.4 miles away, numerous callers late reported a head-on crash at Jones Maltsberger and Redland roads just after 9 p.m. Witnesses said a black Jeep Wrangler took a wide left turn onto Redland Road, hitting a Honda Civic that was waiting at the light. The Civic sustained ‘major damage.’
The driver of the Wrangler fled, but a witness followed the vehicle to its destination. The witness returned to the accident site to give the address to the driver of the Civic, who passed it on to the police.
Officers tracked the Wrangler to Perry’s home, where they found him lying in his backyard with a cut on his head and smelling of alcohol, according to the affidavit. The Wrangler was still running in the driveway.
Officers reported that Perry was ‘unsteady on his feet’ and had difficulty finding his keys and entering his house. He refused to answer questions at one point and gave vague answers at another when asked whether he had been involved in the crash. He told officers that he had not driven his vehicle that night.
On Wednesday, with his political career in jeopardy, Perry said he didn’t recall the car crash for which he is under investigation.
‘I was in a car crash on Sunday,’ Perry said in a statement.
‘I clearly hit my head and don’t really remember it.’
