BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
STARKE— A Bradford County man was sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading to two incidents of fleeing from law enforcement.
Daniel Smith Griffis, 37, pleaded no contest to the Oct. 15, 2021, offenses of fleeing to elude law enforcement at a high speed, driving with a suspended or revoked license and opposing an officer without violence.
He also pleaded no contest to the Jan. 4, 2022, offenses of dealing in stolen property, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, reckless driving, driving with a suspended or revoked license, criminal mischief with up to $1,000 in property damage, leaving the scene of an accident involving property damage and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Bradford deputy Paul King wrote in an arrest report that on Oct. 15, 2021, he spotted Griffis pumping gas into a gray Chevrolet Equinox at a Hampton convenience store. However, when King ran the tag on the SUV, he found the plate belonged to a silver 1994 Mazda pickup.
When King followed the Chevy through Hampton and toward Starke on Southeast County Road 221, Griffis picked up speed.
“The vehicle then passed another vehicle in a no-passing zone,” King reported, “on SE CR 221 at SE 109th Street (also known as Meng Dairy Road).”
King wrote that he then activated his lights and siren, but Griffis kept going.
“As the vehicle went over the railroad tracks on CR 221 at a high rate of speed, it became airborne,” King wrote. “When the vehicle landed the driver lost control and the vehicle came to rest in a ditch at an electrical substation.”
The defendant ran from the crash and into the woods behind the substation. After looking for Griffis for two-and-a-half hours, officers called off the search.
Deputies arrested Griffis for the incident on Nov. 12.
Two months later, on Jan. 4 Deputy Glenn Ward Jr. spotted Griffis travelling on County Road 18 at a high rate of speed.
When he attempted to stop the car, it accelerated to 90 mph, then made an abrupt left turn into a residence about three miles east of Brooker.
Ward wrote that Griffis drove through the yard and into a wooded area in the back of the property before abandoning the Mercury Zephyr and fleeing on foot.
“There were two children playing in the yard of this residence at the time the suspect was driving in such a reckless manner,” wrote Ward. “The children were not struck but a small tree in the yard was knocked over (and) pulled out of the ground.”
K-9 units from the sheriff’s office and Union Correctional Institution later located Griffis in the woods.
Deputies later found methamphetamine in the vehicle, along with the identification and ATM cards of a woman.
During an interview later at the sheriff’s office, Griffis told deputies he bought the car three days earlier for 12 grams of methamphetamine, then cut off the vehicle’s catalytic converter and sold it for $25.
