Suspected drunken driver tries to evade cops in Mendocino, hits utility pole

The allegedly drunken Humboldt County man evaded a Mendocino CHP officer for a few hundred feet before crashing.|
NICK RAHAIM
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A Humboldt County man suspected of impaired driving slammed into a utility pole Sunday night while fleeing a pursuing officer in Laytonville, the CHP said.

Brandon Strasser, 37, of Redway, was taken to Howard Memorial Hospital in Willits for unspecified injuries and arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and evading police, CHP said in a statement.

The CHP officer responded to a report of a possible intoxicated driver of a Ford Excursion at a gas station on Highway 101 in Laytonville around 8:25 p.m. The officer spotted the driver traveling west on Branscomb Road.

Strasser initially yielded to the officer’s lights and sirens, but took off before the stop was made and slammed into a utility pole not far away, CHP said. The crash downed power lines damaging the CHP cruiser.

-Nick Rahaim

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