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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nJames Ray Tompkins, 46, was taking his two children, ages 5 and 8, from Valrico to Disney World on Friday evening, officials said. When a deputy pulled him over on eastbound I-4 near Davenport, they noticed the dad to have glassy and bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and swaying movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tompkins told officials he was driving on the shoulder of the highway due to the traffic and claimed he only had \u201cone bourbon mixed drink.\u201d The deputy conducted a field sobriety test, during which he showed several signs of impairment. Tompkins also refused to take a breath alcohol content test when brought to the booking facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tompkins was arrested for DUI and child abuse. A check of his records showed two prior DUI convictions\u2014 one in June 2007 in Highlands County for DUI and refusing to submit a breath test, and another in June 2012 in Hillsborough County for DUI involving serious bodily injury, DUI property damage, and refusing to submit a breath test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to these prior convictions, Tompkin\u2019s charges are now DUI in the 3rd or subsequent offense, refusing to submit to a breath test, DUI with children under 18 in the car, and two counts of negligent child abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat a poor excuse for a man in charge of two little kids,\u201d Sheriff Grady Judd said. \u201cThis is why my deputies are patrolling the major highways in our county every day in an effort to prevent high-speed traffic crashes and to get impaired drivers off the road. Clearly his previous arrests and convictions have not taught Tompkins a lesson, but perhaps the new felony charges of child abuse will sink in. I\u2019m very grateful those children are okay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A father with a history of DUI arrests was busted again for impaired driving while taking his two kids to Disney World, the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office said. James Ray… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"17","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDNcL2phbWVzLXRvbXBraW5zLndlYnA_Zml0PTQ4MCUyQzYwMCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkRhZCBjYXVnaHQgZHJpdmluZyBpbXBhaXJlZCB3aXRoIDIga2lkcywgaGVhZGluZyB0byBEaXNuZXkgV29ybGQiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.iL30Xs6avteL2eDu6ZPq0B6HY2_zzXKaHNAYRTdeyCMMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":54304,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/james-tompkins.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[11005,11006],"class_list":["post-54303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-dad-caught-driving-impaired-with-2-kids","tag-heading-to-disney-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54305,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54303\/revisions\/54305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}