On Friday night, West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins was arrested for driving under the influence in Pittsburgh. In the police criminal complaint obtained by Leslie Rubin of Fox 11 in Charleston, W.Va., the police officer on hand described what she saw in what was initially a traffic stop.
According to the complaint, Huggins’s car appeared to have a flat tire, and the officer wanted him to allow other cars to pass before helping him with it. However, Huggins was struggling to conduct a three-point turn, at which point the officer approached the car.
“I could smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath, his eyes were glassy, and his speech was slurred and mumbling,” Officer Elysa Folina said.
Folina called for backup and was soon joined by two more officers. In a conversation with another officer, Huggins explained that he was at a basketball camp with his brother in Sherrodsville, Ohio and wasn’t sure how he ended up in Pittsburgh, but he had a receipt that showed he stopped at a Burger King in Washington, Pa.
Here is the 2 page narrative from police
— Leslie Rubin (@LeslieRubinWCHS) June 17, 2023
of Huggins’ arrest. https://t.co/SxjUPVUakZ pic.twitter.com/Iz3tjZec81
According to the complaint, Huggins struggled to answer many of the questions that the officers were asking. The officers asked Huggins to get out of the car, and when he did, he struggled to get through the many facets of the sobriety test.
“Huggins had to be reminded, repeatedly, to keep his head still,” Folina said. “All indications of impairment were observed by Officer Bertan.”
After the sobriety test, the officers arrested Huggins without pushback and further examined his car.
“I observed empty beer cans in a white garbage bag on the front, passenger side floorboard of Huggins’ vehicle,” the complaint says. “In the trunk of the vehicle was another white garbage bag of empty beer cans.”
After police took him back to the station, Huggins blew a .210 on a breathalyzer test before being transferred to another person’s custody. Additionally, the car Huggins was driving was listed as a lease through West Virginia University.
The university released a statement on Saturday morning acknowledging the arrest and stating that it is “gathering more information and will take appropriate action once the review is complete.”
This is Huggins’s second DUI arrest, the first coming in 2004 when he was the head coach of Cincinnati.
