High-speed chase a tall tale: Rev. Al
BY DAVE GOLDINER
NY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER August 30, 2005
Rev. Al Sharpton smelled a rat the size of the Lone Star State after his volunteer driver was charged with leading cops on a 110-mph chase following Sunday's meeting with peace mom Cindy Sheehan.
"I think this is a little Texas politics," Sharpton told the Daily News yesterday. "None of it happened like that at all."
Cops claimed the driver, whose son is an anti-war activist, raced away from sheriff's deputies for 9 miles before troopers finally stopped him in Waxahachie in suburban Dallas on Sunday.
But Sharpton branded the arrest a charade and said he never knew anyone was going to be charged when he jumped into another car and left.
"If there was a 9-mile chase on someone and a wild pursuit, wouldn't every one in the car have been held?" Sharpton said. "They didn't do any of that."
Chief Deputy Charles Sullins said cops had no reason to hassle Sharpton. "There was no reason to bother him," Sullins told The News. Sharpton held a prayer vigil with Sheehan near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., where she is protesting the war in Iraq.
He was riding back to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in a convoy of about four cars when cops say they clocked the one carrying Sharpton at 110 mph in a 65-mph zone around 2 p.m., the Waxahachie Daily Light newspaper reported.
Jarrett Barton Maupin, 43, of Phoenix, was at the wheel of the rented Lincoln Town Car that ignored sheriffs' efforts to pull him over and weaved and sped through traffic on Interstate 35, said Lt. Danny Williams of the Ellis County Sheriff's Office.
Cops charged Maupin with evading arrest and reckless driving. He was later freed on $1,000 bond.Sullins dismissed Sharpton's claim of a bum rap, saying he never even heard of the failed 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.
"Maybe I've just been out here in the country too long," he said.
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