A Howard City man was arrested last Wednesday, September 28, for drunk driving, after he drove his pickup part way over a church retaining wall.
Parents were dropping off their children at the Springs Church, at the corner of First and Grant Streets in Cedar Springs, at about 6:30 p.m. for their Wednesday evening kids programming, when Pastor Barry Briggs said he noticed a red F150 pickup circling the parking lot. He said he didn’t think anything of it since cars were coming and going. And then someone came in and told him that the truck had one wheel dangling over the ledge in their parking lot.
Briggs and another church member, Roy Rypma, went out to see what the problem was, and knew immediately the man was intoxicated. They called police, and while waiting for them to arrive, a couple of people passing by on the street helped the man get his truck off the ledge.
Briggs called police again, and told them the guy was going to drive away. In the meantime, the passersby reportedly told the man that police had been called and that they would help get him out of there.
At that point, Rypma and Briggs told the man to get out of the truck and to give them his keys, which he did. Police, who had been busy serving another felony warrant, arrived a few minutes later.
“He had obvious signs of intoxication,” said Cedar Springs Police Chief Roger Parent. “He was put through a field sobriety test and lodged in the Kent County jail.”
The man’s name is being withheld pending his arraignment.
Briggs was mystified as to why the man was in the church parking lot, since he wasn’t dropping any kids off. “He must have driven in by mistake and couldn’t figure out how to get out. We’re just glad no one was hurt,” he said.