PERRYVILLE — A state senator accused of leading a Perry County sheriff’s deputy on a car chase at speeds of more than 100 mph was found guilty Thursday of fleeing, careless and prohibited driving, and improper passing, and was ordered to perform 400 hours of community service.
Rejecting Sen. Bruce Holland’s claim that he didn’t know the deputy was pursuing him, Perry County District Judge Elizabeth Wise also ordered Holland to pay $890 in fines and court costs, calling his actions on the day of the chase “totally unacceptable.”
“The only reason someone wasn’t killed that day was probably luck,” Wise told Holland.
Holland, R-Greenwood, said he would appeal the verdict and sentence to Pulaski County Circuit Court and he plans to take a lie detector test to prove that he wasn’t aware he was being chased as he sped along Arkansas 10 on his way to a meeting in Van Buren.
“I can tell you without a doubt that I was never fleeing,” Holland told reporters after the trial.
Deputy Ray Byrd of the Perry County sheriff’s office said during the trial that he reached speeds of 110 mph while trying to catch Holland during the Jan. 24 chase,which stretched more than 16 miles from outside Adona in Perry County to the Yell County town of Ola.
Holland was stopped in Ola by the town’s police chief. After learning that Holland was a state senator, Byrd let him go with only a scolding because of a law and provision in the state constitution that Byrd thought gave Holland immunity from arrest. After further research, and a meeting with Perry County Sheriff Scott Montgomery, Byrd determined that the law did not give Holland immunity from the offenses and decided to issue a citation for the offenses.
Holland admitted that he was speeding but denied improperly passing other cars and said he never saw Byrd following him in an unmarked police pickup with its blue lights flashing.
“I was speeding, and I wasn’t concerned with traffic coming up on my tail,” Holland testified. “I was concerned with going forward.”
Byrd testified that he first spotted Holland’s gray Nissan 300Z sports car at 4:10 p.m. as it approached him from behind. He said he activated the blue lights in the truck’s rear windshield, but the car didn’t slow down. Instead, it “just zoomed by,” passing Byrd’s pickup and two other vehicles in a no-passing zone, he said.
Byrd said he then activated the blue lights in the front grille of the truck and tried to catch up with the Nissan, at one point reaching 100 mph while the Nissan was still pulling away from him.
“I scared myself two or three times,” Byrd said. Holland, he said, would pass other cars “whether there was a yellow line there or not. I just couldn’t touch him.”
Sue Turner, who lives near Perryville, testified that she was headed east on the highway, near Arkansas 155, when the Nissan passed her car and two other vehicles in a no-passing zone, then zipped past a logging truck in front of her on a bridge just before a curve.
“It terrified me,” Turner said. The Nissan, she said “was just like a rocket.”
Under questioning by Holland’s attorney, Bill Walters of Greenwood, Byrd acknowledged that he didn’t activate his truck’s siren because he didn’t realize it had been equipped with one.
Testifying on behalf of Holland, former Greenwood Police Chief Keith Jackson said that while he was chief, he often attempted to stop cars on U.S. 71 while driving an unmarked pickup equipped with blue lights. Most of the time, he said, he had to request assistance from other officers to stop the cars. When the motorists were finally stopped, they told him they didn’t see his truck’s blue lights.
Walters also noted that Holland stopped outside Ola for Yell County sheriff’s Sgt. Jimmy Pitts, who flagged Holland down after being alerted about the pursuit by a dispatcher.
Pitts said he let Holland go because Byrd described the sports car as having an out of-state license plate. In fact, it had a personalized license plate with a Razorbacks logo and the letter Z as its identifying mark.
Shortly after Pitts let Holland go, Ola Chief John Stafford said he saw Byrd’s pickup and realized that there had been a mistake. Stafford said he caught up with the Nissan and stopped it without incident.
Walters said Holland knew that police officers can communicate with one another over radios, and that it would be ludicrous for the senator to think he could get away.
“No one would think that,” Walters said.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Ross said, however, that Turner had testified that she saw Byrd approaching her with his blue lights on and that motorists often think they can outrun the police. The only reason Holland stopped, he said, was because he saw the other officers and realized “the game is over.”
Walters pointed out that Holland drove for 13 minutes and 5 seconds, traveling 16.1miles, before being stopped by the Yell County deputy. That made his average speed 74 mph, he said.
But, siding with Ross, the judge said there was no doubt that Holland reached speeds of more than 100 mph, though at times he had to slow down before passing other cars. She said motorists often think of Perry County as a “no-cop zone” where they can speed with impunity.
She said Holland must have seen Byrd’s blue lights before passing the pickup and that he likely fled to avoid “embarrassment.”
She ordered Holland to report to the Perry County jail to be fingerprinted and to post an $890 bond while he appeals the conviction to circuit court.
Holland said he was “very disappointed in the ruling” and wouldn’t be planning an appeal if he had been found guilty of only careless driving and improper passing. He said he could tell from the judge’s “tone” early in the trial that she was likely to find him guilty.
“I think we saw early on this wasn’t going to go our way,” Holland said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/09/2011