Dramatic police chase ended in jail for soul great
SEP 24, 1988
Police shot out three tyres but he drove on the wheel rims
HE was known as the Godfather of Soul, but James Brown once became involved in an incident that would be more fitting of a scene from a series of Mafia films of a similar name.
That’s because, on September 24, 1988, he entered an insurance seminar in Augusta, Georgia, armed with a shotgun and a pistol.
He then proceeded to order everyone to leave.
When Brown fled the scene in his pick-up truck, a dramatic police chase ensued.
He was hardly a stranger to the police, having had some run-ins with the law earlier that year.
The chase would see the singer, whose songs include I Feel Good, pursued into South Carolina and then back into Georgia – and it seemed nothing was going to stop him.
Police shot out three of his tyres, but he just drove on his wheel rims for as long as he could – eventually running into a ditch.
Throughout James Brown’s life, he would be accused of domestic abuse on many occasions, but his wife at the time, Adrienne Rodriguez, defended him after the chase, saying that he was “not in his right mind” due to taking medication after having surgery on his jaw.
After his arrest, the singer argued he had been unfairly treated.
Police officers said he had tried to run them over, so they justifiably shot at his tyres.
According to Brown, however, he was in the process of giving himself up to a black policeman when white officers arrived and set about smashing the windows on his truck.
He argued that was why he drove off in his truck in the first place – it was self-defence.
Whatever the real course of events, in December of the same year, he was sentenced to six years and six months, having been charged with failing to stop for a police officer, as well as aggravated assault.
He was released on February 27, 1991, and he kept himself out of trouble – for a while at least.
He was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1998, and was forced to complete a 90-day rehab programme.
Then, in 2000, an electrician attending his home to repair lighting accused the singer of charging at him with a knife.
Between 1987 and 1995, Adrienne, the wife who had defended him, went on to accuse him four times of domestic abuse, as did another wife, Tomi Rae Hynie, in 2004.
In 2005, a case regarding an alleged rape of a former employee came to court, but the judge dismissed the allegations due to a two-year time limit.
James Brown died on Christmas Day, 2006, aged 73.