A Villager was jailed on a drunk driving charge after running a stop sign at Lake Sumter Landing.
William Edward Whithill, 71, of the Village of Santo Domingo, was driving a white Ford Fusion at about 8 p.m. Sunday when he failed to come to a complete stop sign at Fish Camp Road and Lake Shore Drive, near the entrance to the Lakeshore Cottages, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. A deputy followed Whithill’s vehicle to County Road 466 and Morse Boulevard where a traffic stop was initiated.
The deputy suspected Whithill had been drinking and noticed that the Massachusetts native “walked with a slight sway.” Whithill attributed it to “a hip injury on his right side.”
He struggled through field sobriety exercises and eventually announced he had gone “as far as he could go,” the deputy wrote in the report.
A breath test was administered at 10:52 p.m. The samples provided by Whithill registered .076 and .073, slightly lower than the .08 legal threshold.
“It should be noted, the time duration from point of stop to when the first breath sample was given was over two hours,” the deputy noted in the report.
Whithill was arrested on charge of driving under the influence and issued a written warning for failing to come to a complete stop. He was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and released after posting $1,000 bond.
