Written by Juan Ortega at Sun Sentinel
Retired NFL player Lawrence Taylor was freed from jail early Saturday after his arrest on charges he sideswiped a police car while driving drunk on Florida’s Turnpike, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Troopers took Taylor, 57, of Pembroke Pines, into custody on the charge of DUI alcohol Friday evening in Palm Beach Gardens. Although Taylor sustained minor injuries, no one else was hurt, the Highway Patrol said.
According to an arrest report released Saturday by the agency, Taylor’s breath tests showed he had a blood-alcohol level of .082 and .084 nearly five hours after the crash. Florida’s legal limit is .08.
About 5:20 p.m., Taylor was entering Florida’s Turnpike from the Beeline Expressway and tried to merge into traffic in a 2010 Bentley when he struck the right side of a motor home, the highway patrol said. He then veered right and sideswiped a Highway Patrol vehicle that was stopped on the shoulder of the turnpike. The trooper whose vehicle was struck had just wrapped up an unrelated traffic stop.
Taylor had bloodshot, watery eyes and was unsteady on his feet as troopers performed sobriety tests on him, an arrest report said. A trooper placed Taylor in handcuffs to arrest him.
When Taylor was asked at the jail whether he’d had anything to drink, he replied, “Apparently too much,” the FHP arrest report said.
Taylor required medical evaluation during the evening. Paramedics examined him before he was taken to the hospital after he complained he wasn’t feeling well, the agency said.
Jail records show Taylor was booked about 2:50 a.m., then released about 4:30 a.m.
Taylor, a native of Williamsburg, Va., was one of the most fearsome defensive players in NFL history. In his 13 seasons with the New York Giants (1981-93), the outside linebacker made the Pro Bowl 10 times.
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