AUSTIN, Texas — A 23-year-old man was arrested on a drunken driving charge Sunday morning after allegedly striking a marked Austin Police Department patrol vehicle on I-35 in north Austin, injuring the officer inside.
According to the department, Zaire Brisbane struck the rear of the officer’s patrol vehicle at a high rate of speed at approximately 5:26 a.m. in the 13800 block of northbound I-35 near Howard Lane. The impact caused the patrol vehicle to spin and come to rest perpendicular to the traffic lanes.
The officer had been blocking the far-right southbound lane with emergency lights activated to protect the scene of an earlier crash, in which a large truck traveling northbound had struck a concrete barrier, sending it into the southbound lanes.
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Brisbane remained at the scene. Responding officers observed signs of intoxication and called for an impaired driving investigator. Brisbane admitted to consuming alcohol earlier in the evening, and officers observed multiple indicators of impairment during standardized field sobriety tests.
Brisbane was arrested and booked into the Travis County Jail on a charge of driving while intoxicated.
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The officer was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. All lanes of I-35 reopened by 10:45 a.m. The crash remains under investigation.