Port St. Lucie - Wednesday May 18, 2022: A Port St. Lucie Police officer who was part of a detail at a DUI check point was forced to dash across the roadway to avoid getting hit by an onrushing vehicle.
It happened at 2:16 am Wednesday morning along the 3000 block of SW Port St. Lucie Blvd. The officers assigned to the detail were parked in the right southbound lane with their emergency lights on. They had stopped a vehicle and were conducting a DUI investigation when they noticed another vehicle approaching at a high rate of speed.
PSL Officer Austin Officer Magura was standing in the roadway about to get back into his patrol car when he realized the approaching vehicle was not slowing down or changing lanes.
Officer Magura had no choice but to run east across SW Port St. Lucie Blvd. The vehicle that nearly hit him clipped the driver's side rearview mirror of his patrol car as it speed past, without stopping.
PSL Police Sergeant Erik Levasseur gave chase pulled the speeding vehicle over near SW PSL Blvd and SW Fisherman Ave. The driver, 27 year old Joseph Lara, was arrested and taken to jail for driving under the influence.
A post on the PSL Police Facebook page states that officers learned Lara had "just came from a local bar and consumed several alcoholic beverages."