Is he Jim Rockford or Bo Duke?

by Ken Kiunke , November 19, 2013

Jeremy Wayne Griffin

UPPER LAKE – LAKE COUNTY – 33-year-old Jeremy Wayne Griffin may be too young to remember the iconic shows “The Rockford Files” and “The Dukes Of Hazzard”, but he tried to show off driving skills worthy of Jim Rockford or Bo Duke in a scrape with Lake County Sheriff’s Detectives last Wednesday night.

On November 13, at about 10:20 pm, Lake County Narcotics detectives saw a man in a Porsche 944 Coupe pull into the Three Brothers Chevron with shattered windshield. He circled the parking lot and then sped off on Highway 20 eastbound, shattering the speed limit as well. According to Lt. Steve Brooks, the Sheriff’s Public Information Officer, the detectives followed in pursuit with their emergency lights on and siren blazing. Griffin, who is from Kelseyville in Eastern Lake County, about 17 miles south of Upper Lake, continued driving over 90 miles per hour, passing the Running Creek Casino and its crosswalk over highway 20.

Griffin was spotted first at Three Brothers Chevron driving a Porsche with a broken windshield.

He turned left onto Old Lucerne Road, a sharp winding turn, and lost control, nearly hitting a power pole and ending up on a dirt embankment. As the pursuing vehicle approached, he floored it, and completed a “sliding u-turn” around the detectives’ car, heading back up Old Lucerne, reaching up to 70 mph through the residential neighborhood. He turned onto 2nd Street, and then down Elliot, which dead-ends at an unpaved driveway. Opening his car door before he came to a stop, Griffin jumped out and ran westward through the rural residential yards, climbing over a fence and finding a large blackberry bush to hide himself in.

Griffin spun out, but put the moves on at Hwy 20 & Old Lucerne.

No Bre’r Rabbit, the blackberry patch did not hide him well, but the prickles may have done some damage from the looks of his mugshot. Detectives ordered him out of the bushes, and he now meekly complied. Perhaps he thought he might get away easy for just the car chase, but the detectives found his baggie of crystal methamphetamine on the ground where he had jumped the fence. Also found in his car was a glass meth pipe, which was stowed in the driver’s door pocket.

The car chase ended here when he ran out of road. He jumped out and ran.

Griffin was arrested and booked at the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility. He faces charges of possession of a controlled substance for sale, transportation of said controlled substance, evading a peace officer with willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons and property, destroying or concealing evidence, resisting arrest, and driving with a suspended license. The meth in his possession weighed 40.8 grams, with a street value of at least $4,000.00.