One Of Dodgers Top Prospects Arrested In Chattanooga; Going 97 MPH On Amnicola Highway

  • Monday, April 29, 2013

One of the Los Angeles Dodgers' top prospects was arrested early Sunday in Chattanooga.

Yasiel Puig, 22, was taken to the Hamilton County Jail on charges of reckless driving, speeding and not having insurance. Police said Puig was driving 97 miles per hour in a 50-mile-per-hour zone on Amnicola Highway.

In the incident at 1:01 a.m., an officer said he saw a BMW traveling at "an extremely high rate of speed." He said the car went from one lane and back to another and came close to hitting another car.

The officer said it took blue lights and multiple siren blasts to get the car to pull over.

He said a passenger in the BMW had to translate. It was found that Puig was to be the designated driver for his friend, the report says.

The officer said, "After considering the alarming amount of danger in which the driver put his passenger, I made the decision to make a physical arrest of the driver. The driver was clearly driving with wanton disregard for the safety of other citizen drivers as well as himself and his passenger."

Puig, a defector from Cuba, has a sprained thumb and has been out of the lineup of the Chattanooga Lookouts in recent days.

He had been taken out of one game earlier in the season in the third inning for "a mental mistake." He apparently had not run out a fly ball. 

The Dodgers signed Puig to a seven-year deal worth $42 million last June.

He battled .526 during spring training with the Major League club.

Puig is set to go before General Sessions Court Judge David Bales on May 14.

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