Crying kids alert St. Petersburg authorities to woman driving under influence: report

Leonora LaPeter Anton, Tampa Bay Times
·2 min read
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ST. PETERSBURG — Children crying and screaming for help in the backseat of a 2016 Honda in St. Petersburg on Saturday morning led to the arrest of the driver, Annie Gay Shockley, on a charge of driving under the influence.

Shockley, 39, who lives in Clearwater, was stopped at 12th Avenue S and 16th Street in St. Petersburg and booked into the Pinellas County Jail on a $20,900 bail.

Shockley told police they were going fishing but that she was supposed to only be driving for business purposes, since she was convicted five months ago for driving under the influence, according to an arrest report. Her name was listed as Annie Gay Robertson in that case.

In that incident, Shockley also appears to have had three children with her. She ran her car through a stop sign and into a tree on Philippe Parkway in Safety Harbor on Aug. 13, 2021, according to a police report. She was charged with three counts of child abuse, which later were reduced to three counts of contributing to the delinquency or dependency of a child.

In Saturday’s incident, a child in the car expressed fear to police because there was alcohol in a brown paper bag in the car and the child felt Shockley was drinking. The child was visibly upset and mentioned a previous crash.

Shockley had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and smelled of alcohol, police said. She refused to perform sobriety or breath tests. While being taken into custody, she bit a St. Petersburg police officer in the upper arm, a report said. She was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, driving under the influence, refusal to submit to testing, violation of driver’s license restrictions and three counts of neglect of a child without bodily harm.