A Massachusetts man who police said was driving drunk nearly 50 mph over the speed limit in Southern New Hampshire was arrested Tuesday morning.
New Hampshire State Police said in a statement that Craig Cooper, 51, of Amesbury, was recorded traveling 114 miles per hour on Interstate 95 in Portsmouth. The speed limit in the area is 65 miles per hour.
Cooper also faces charges of assaulting two correctional officers, who police said he punched and kicked at a nearby county jail.
Just as reports arrived around 9 a.m. Tuesday of a person driving erratically on I-95 in a white SUV, a state police plane monitoring traffic from the air tracked the car traveling 49 miles per hour over the speed limit.
Soon after, state police Sgt. Christopher Storm recorded the car, a 2017 Ford Explorer, on radar still traveling 114 miles per hour, he said.
“You clearly know it’s traveling that fast,” Storm said Wednesday. “It’s readily obvious.”
Storm pulled the car over and performed a field sobriety test on the driver, he said. But the Massachusetts man, who Storm determined was intoxicated, declined to take a breathalyzer.
Cooper was arrested and placed in protective custody at Rockingham County Jail. While there, officials said, he kicked one correctional officer and punched another.
Cooper now faces charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated, having an open container of alcohol, reckless operation and assault on a correctional officer. He is scheduled to appear in Portsmouth District Court on Jan. 31.
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