18-year-old faces felony charges linked to DWI crash with injury

Tanner W. Jennings, of Theodosia, has been charged with driving while intoxicated involving a serious physical injury, a class D felony, and leaving the scene of an accident, a class E felony, in connection with a July 18 incident in which Jennings was allegedly driving a pickup truck with other teens in the bed when one passenger fell out of the truck bed, hit the pavement and was seriously injured. 

A $2,500 cash-only bond was originally issued in the case by Associate Circuit Judge Raymond Gross. However, online records indicate Jennings appeared before Gross Tuesday. His attorney, Joseph Allen, phoned in to the hearing. Allen requested that Jennings be released on his own recognizance with conditions, and the warrant was withdrawn. He is scheduled to return to court before Gross for a trial setting Sept. 29. 

Responding to the call

According to the probable cause statement in the case filed by Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. L. Elliott, the officer was notified of a single-vehicle crash involving a man who had fallen from the bed of a pickup on W Highway near Pontiac at 1:26 a.m. Saturday, July 18.

Elliott wrote in his report that when the dispatcher called him for the W Highway crash, he was already responding to another crash involving a pedestrian who had been hit by a vehicle at the Twin Bridges Campground in Douglas County, northeast of Dora. Elliott asked the dispatcher to ask the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department to respond to the scene to gather preliminary information while he concluded his work at Twin Bridges. 

After leaving Twin Bridges, Elliott drove to the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office and spoke with Deputy Seth Miller, who had responded to the W Highway site and conducted an initial investigation, the report says. Miller told Elliott a large group of teens had been at a Pontiac residence party where liquor was involved, the report says. The deputy said a group of teens left the party in a truck traveling westbound on W Highway. He said several of the occupants chose to ride in the truck bed, and one of the occupants, Cooper High, fell from the truck bed and struck his head on the pavement. Miller told Elliott that High had sustained serious head wounds and was transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital. Miller said Jennings was driving the truck at the time High fell out, and he had left the scene afterward. 

Elliott finds Jennings

Elliott found Jennings at the Pontiac residence where the party was held, the document says. Elliott smelled alcohol on Jennings’ breath and noticed that his eyes were watery and bloodshot. Jennings reportedly told the officer that he had been drinking before the accident but he had not drunk any alcohol since the accident. 

Jennings told Elliott that, after the crash, someone who lives at the residence where the party was held told Jennings that he was on the fire department and that medical assistance was on the way. Jennings also said the person “told him he needed to go home,” Elliott wrote. 

Elliott advised Jennings that the VFD volunteer was not law enforcement and that Jennings should have remained on scene. “Jennings stated, ‘I know’ several times and said it was his fault,” Elliott wrote.

Jennings provides a breath sample

Elliott administered a preliminary breath test to Jennings that tested positive for alcohol and indicated a blood alcohol content over the legal limit. Elliott then administered a series of field sobriety tests. He arrested Jennings at 4:50 a.m., about three and a half hours after the incident was first reported. 

Jennings was placed in handcuffs and was transported to the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department. There, Elliott reportedly read Jennings Missouri’s implied-consent law. Jennings told the officer he understood his rights and agreed to submit a breath sample for testing. At 5:48 a.m., four hours and 22 minutes after the incident was first reported, Jennings tested a blood alcohol content of .159 percent, nearly twice the legal limit for adults of legal drinking age (21). Because Jennings was 18 at the time of the incident, it was illegal for him to have a blood alcohol content over .02 percent.