{"id":160404,"date":"2026-02-02T16:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/160404\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T16:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:04:09","slug":"detroiter-guilty-of-drunk-driving-crash-that-killed-oakland-county-man-the-oakland-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/160404\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroiter guilty of drunk driving crash that killed Oakland County man \u2013 The Oakland Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Detroiter was recently convicted of criminal charges for a drunk driving crash that killed an Oakland County man and injured another.<\/p>\n<p>At the conclusion of a jury trial Jan. 29 in Wayne County\u2019s Third Judicial Circuit Court, Damien Eldridge Thomas, 44, was found guilty of operating while intoxicated causing death and reckless driving causing death for the Aug. 26, 2023 three-vehicle crash that killed Drasan Clanton, 26, of Hazel Park and injured a then-27-year-old Detroit man.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"man\" width=\"1134\" height=\"515\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/TOP-L-fataldrunkcrashguilty0202-01-e1770047094279.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"2673966\" \/>Drasan Clanton was killed in the 2023 crash on I-75 (photo from GoFundMe organized by Kayla Clanton)<\/p>\n<p>The collision happened at around 2:30 a.m. on southbound 1-75 near Clark Street in Detroit. Michigan State Police troopers found Clanton with multiple injuries and unresponsive in his vehicle. He was subsequently pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Eldridge was arrested and charged approximately a year after the crash, following an investigation by MSP.\u00a0 He\u2019s in custody at the Wayne County Jail. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 12.<\/p>\n<p>A GoFundMe to help Clanton\u2019s family remains active. To donate, go to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/drasan-clanton-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/drasan-clanton-jr<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Detroiter was recently convicted of criminal charges for a drunk driving crash that killed an Oakland County&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[78045,78047,16931,8296,78046,78048,143,145,144,78049],"class_list":["post-160404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-3rd-judicial-circuit","tag-drasan-clanton","tag-drunk-driving","tag-fatal-crash","tag-i-75-collision","tag-jury-trial","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-owi-causing-death"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}