A Hot Springs Village man who fled from Village police last year, almost running over an officer, was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty in Garland County Circuit Court.
David Garrison Goings, 22, who listed a Charnela Lane address at the time of his last arrest, pleaded guilty to a felony count of fleeing, punishable by up to six years in prison, and in addition to prison time was ordered to pay $170 in costs.
According to the probable cause affidavits, on Nov. 29, 2017, shortly before 11:30 a.m., Hot Springs Village Police Officer Ryan Harper responded to Albacete Way in reference to a woman screaming. Upon arrival, he was flagged down by a woman who stated she and her husband heard a woman screaming and came to investigate.
The woman took him to the alleged victim, who was holding her 2-month-old daughter and Harper noted injuries and dried blood on her lips and swelling and redness to her cheeks. When asked who had caused the injuries, the victim indicated it was her boyfriend and the father of her child, identified as Goings.
She said Goings had hit and kicked her and then fled the residence in a vehicle prior to the officers' arrival.
Sgt. Brian Nickles arrived on the scene and told Harper he had arrested Goings in June on a felony battery charge for allegedly assaulting the same victim, who was pregnant at the time. It was noted the victim indicated she did not want Goings arrested and would not cooperate with the investigation.
She refused to allow the officers to photograph her injuries, but the affidavit notes they were recorded on Harper's body camera and, based on the injuries, her admission Goings caused them, and observations by the officers, a warrant was issued for Goings' arrest.
The next day, HSV police Sgt. Lori Sill was on the way back to the police department from getting the warrant for Goings when she spotted the vehicle Goings was last seen in at the corner of Calella and DeSoto Boulevard and then confirmed Goings was driving it as he pulled away.
She caught up with it at the traffic light at DeSoto and Highway 7 north and positioned her unit in front of the suspect vehicle trying to block him in. She approached Goings who stated, "Who the (expletive) are you?" She identified herself and told Goings there was a warrant for his arrest and put her hand on the driver's side door handle of his vehicle.
Goings yelled, "(Expletive) you, (expletive)!" and began to pull forward, almost hitting Sill's vehicle. She was still holding onto the door handle, ordering him out of the vehicle, when he put his vehicle in reverse and then back in drive, accelerating at a high rate of speed.
Sill said she finally had to let go of the handle for fear of being run over and dragged by Goings' vehicle. She got back in her unit and began to follow Goings "but he was driving at such a fast and erratic manner the pursuit was called off."
Sill said there was a female passenger in the vehicle she recognized who was "screaming for Goings to stop and let her out," but he refused. A warrant on the fleeing charge was issued Dec. 1, 2017. Goings was arrested on April 11 in Bowie County, Texas, and extradited back to Hot Springs and initially held on $125,000 bond.
Goings pleaded not guilty to the charge on June 5 and was released on $5,000 bond on June 8. A condition of his bond was that he complete a drug-treatment program at a local recovery center. When he left the center before completing the program, his bond was revoked and he was arrested again on Aug. 14 and had remained in custody since then.
Local on 10/12/2018