Former mayor arrested after leading cops on drunken car chase
Former North Royalton Mayor Cathy Luks was arrested last week after leading police on a drunken chase
The former mayor of a small town in Ohio was arrested after leading police on a short high-speed chase before crashing into another vehicle.
Cathy Luks, 66, was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, opening a container of alcohol in a vehicle, speeding, and driving with an expired license plate.
During her arrest, Luks let a Parma Police Department officer know he was arresting a former public official.
Luks served as the mayor of North Royalton, a small Cleveland suburb home to about 31,000 people, between 1999 and 2007.
Body camera footage released by the Parma Police Department caught the entire exchange.
In the footage, an arresting officer pulls Luks over and asks her to drive into a nearby parking lot. The officer calmly explains to Luks that she was going 43 miles per hour in a 24 mile per hour zone.
Luks, however, remains defiant, answering all of the officer’s questions with ‘no.’
After he asks her to put her car in park, Luks rolls up her window and takes off down a roadway. During the chase, the officer estimates her speed to be about 65 miles per hour.
The chase ends less than a minute after it began after Luks made a sharp right turn and crashed into back of a tow truck.
Police then detain the disgruntled ex-mayor, who continues to resist arrest.
‘What you’re doing is wrong,’ she repeats as the officer handcuffs her and places her in a patrol car.
‘I was the mayor of the city of North Royalton,’ she says defiantly.
Luks was detained and charged with drunk driving, driving with an expired license plate, and speeding.
She did not enter a plea at her bond hearing at Parma Municipal Court on Thursday, September 28.
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