DUI suspect allegedly rams into multiple vehicles

A Lacey man was arrested after allegedly colliding into three vehicles while drunk.

Lacey police arrested Nathan Tyrone Menefee, 36, on March 10 after a reported vehicle accident near the southeast side of Yelm Highway and Ruddell Road.

The reporting party said he was getting ready to go after the traffic light turned green, but a GMC Yukon came from behind him and hit the side of his car.

“He hit my car several times,” the man’s witness statement read. “[He] backed up and came back to do it again, then he goes forward, floors it over the divider, losing a tire.”

Another witness wrote that he was parked at stoplight when a “car came from [the] back, hit two cars behind me. [I] made a U-turn, stopped to see if everyone was ok. Then my truck was struck because he tried to get away.”

Police arrived at the scene and immediately detained Menefee without incident. Officers noted a “strong odor of alcohol coming from his breath,” as well as bloodshot and watery eyes.

Menefee performed two field sobriety tests called the horizontal gaze nystagmus and the walk-and-turn. Police observed three clues of intoxication from the first test and said the suspect failed to walk heel to toe in the second test.

The suspect did not consent to the one-leg stand test and a preliminary breathalyzer test.

Menefee was taken to the Capital Medical Center for a blood draw that police said took nearly an hour because of his refusal to comply. Medical staff eventually drew the suspect’s blood and vials were brought to the Lacey Police Department as evidence.

The suspect was booked at the Nisqually Jail for driving under the influence.