DUI charges brought in Roost parking lot

A minor fender-bender led to a five-count charge for aggravated DUI and other crimes early Saturday morning outside The Roost Sports Bar & Café on John Wayne Parkway.

Maricopa police were dispatched to the parking lot of the Roost at 1:18 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 27 after receiving reports of an erratic driver who had struck a parked car in the parking lot. Upon arrival, officers found the car in another section of the lot, running, and contacted the driver, Gary Wayne Fields, Jr., who “displayed obvious signs of extreme intoxication,” according to police documents.

Police detected the strong odor of alcohol on his breath, delayed reactions, droopy, watery eyes, slurred speech, and officers ordered him out of the vehicle. When they began to assist him out, he resisted, bracing himself inside the vehicle to the point that officers had to physically remove him from the vehicle, subdue him on the pavement and handcuff him.

One of the officers sustained minor abrasions to a hand and knees during the arrest, during which officers recovered two open vodka bottles from Fields’ pockets. Additional empty liquor bottles were found in his car.

In investigating the scene, MPD officers found damage to the taillight of Fields’ vehicle  and pieces of his broken taillight at the location where he struck the other vehicle. Two witnesses reported they saw the collision and identified Fields as the driver.

Fields declined to take a standardized field sobriety test, a preliminary breath test or an evidentiary test. Upon running his driving record officers determined Fields had two prior DUI convictions in the past seven years, has no driver’s license, and his driving privileges in Arizona are revoked due to DUI and endangerment. A search warrant was obtained for Fields’ blood and two vials were drawn.

He was charged with two counts of aggravated DUI, resisting arrest, striking an unattended vehicle and failure to obey police.