Woman arrested after driving car into water with child in back seat

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

Lauren Ashley Frazee, 32, was arrested late last night after being found in the driver’s seat of a car on a boat ramp in Hawthorne, with water pouring out the doors and a child in the back seat.

Earlier in the evening, Frazee was allegedly involved in a separate incident. At about 5:08 p.m., an Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputy was dispatched to the Love’s Truck Stop in Hawthorne, where the manager reported that Frazee was causing a disturbance in the store and that when she was asked to leave, Frazee took an unopened Gatorade bottle from the display case, opened it, and threw the contents on the manager. The incident was captured on the store’s video surveillance system and witnessed by a customer and another employee. Frazee left the store before the deputy arrived.

At about 10:50 p.m. the same evening, a different deputy responded to a call from a resident living near the Holden Park boat ramp; the caller said they could hear someone calling for help. When the deputy arrived at the boat ramp, he reported that he found Frazee in the driver’s seat of a car sitting on the boat ramp, still running, with water pouring out of all four doors of the vehicle. There was a child in the back seat of the car, reportedly shivering from being wet. The deputy reported that when he asked Frazee what happened, she said she drove down the boat ramp into the lake when her daughter asked her to get closer to the water.

The deputy also reported that he saw a white pill “sitting on her bottom lip,” and it dropped onto her shirt and eventually onto the seat after she began talking. He reported that there was an open prescription bottle on the car seat next to Frazee. When he asked Frazee to step out of the vehicle, he reported that she was slow to follow instructions, was unsteady on her feet, and had to lean on vehicles for balance. He also reported that her eyelids were “droopy” and her speech was “thick tongued.” Frazee reportedly told the deputy she had been taking prescription pills, and the deputy reported that all pills found in the vehicle had been prescribed to her.

The deputy reported that Frazee performed poorly on four out of five field sobriety exercises and was placed under arrest for driving under the influence. Two breath test samples gave results of 0.000. The deputy requested assistance with investigation of impairment from other substances, but after a second deputy arrived, Frazee allegedly refused to continue to participate. When the deputies asked her for consent to provide a urine sample, she allegedly became “verbally aggressive” and refused to provide the sample. She then allegedly tried to kick a deputy and then kicked him multiple times and tried to bite him after he took her to the ground. She was detained with the assistance of Alachua County Jail staff.

Frazee has been charged with DUI with a person under 18 in the vehicle, battery on an officer, resisting arrest without violence, and neglecting a child without great bodily harm; she was charged with battery for the earlier incident at the truck stop. She is being held on $65,000 bond.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.