Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Defendant Slugs Lawyer

Upset defendant smacks his attorney on video. . .ouch!!

Trooper busts YouTube 'drifters' in Bellevue

By TRAVIS PITTMAN / KING5.com

BELLEVUE, Wash. – Police frown upon someone driving recklessly. They tend to get a little more upset when someone does it to show off on camera.

Imagine the reaction of a trooper when it happened right next door to a Washington State Patrol office in Bellevue.

The state patrol says two men who work at a local auto dealership decided to take a late model Infiniti G35 from the dealership Sunday and do a stunt known as "drifting" in a vacant parking lot. At the same time, the men were videotaping the stunt driving to post on YouTube. Troopers say a 21-year-old North Bend man was driving and 21-year-old Bothell man, who was a passenger, also shot some video from the curb.

Their antics caught the attention of a trooper who was pulling into the WSP office next door. The trooper arrested the driver for reckless driving then spotted a video camera on the floorboard of the car which had captured the entire incident.

It turns out, the Infiniti had just been handed over to the car dealership on a trade in. Both men were fired.

The driver was booked on felony malicious mischief and reckless driving charges. The other man was booked on a felony malicious mischief charge.

Drifting, which started in Japan about 10 years ago, is basically trying to get your car to go sideways down a road. It was a key part of the 2006 film "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift."