Texas City Commissioner charged in deadly crash near Galveston Causeway
GALVESTON, Texas (FOX 26) - Two men were killed and a Texas City Commissioner At Large was arrest and charged in their deaths. Dee Ann Haney has represented Texas City since first being elected to the position in 2004. Just before 1 a.m. Monday, Galveston police say Haney was driving a whtie Ford F-150 pickup truck while intoxicated and ran over a man and his son near the island causeway.
Haney has also served on several boards of directors including the Houston-Galveston Area Council. She’s the laboratory safety and training coordinator at the Texas A&M Galveston campus and earned a Master's Degree in Science. A jail booking photo and criminal charges are now part of her record. Haney was surrounded by news cameras after she posted $100,000 bond and walked out of jail into the back seat of a white car that was waiting for her.
"That’s pretty horrible,” says one of Haney’s neighbors.
Galveston police say three men were parked on the shoulder on the Interstate 45 Causeway just north of the Harborside exit at around 12:55 a.m. Monday. Van Duoc Le, 58, Phuc Hong Le, 32, and Thanh Nguyen were leaving Galveston after working on the island. The father, son and brother-in-law stopped to secure heavy plastic in the bed of their black Toyota Tacoma truck and that’s when investigators say Haney's F-150 sideswiped their vehicle and struck two of the men. Police arrived and found the bodies of the father and son in a grassy area beyond the shoulder.
”Two males lying just off the roadway," explains Galveston Police Department Captain Joshua Schirard. "EMS started attending to the males. However, they declared them deceased on the scene shortly after arrival.”
According to an affidavit, the 54-year-old Texas City Commissioner told officers she had just smoked marijuana.
"So Galveston police officers, along with troopers from DPS, did several standard field sobriety tests on the female driver and quickly determined she was showing signs of intoxication," explains Capt. Schirard. "She was then taken to UTMB where a mandatory blood draw was conducted.”
"As a leader she should have known better and done better,” says resident Hedwig Skains.
"Everybody has demons, but as a public figure, you have to learn to control those demons a little bit better," says another Texas City resident. "You have to make better decisions.”
The Galveston Police Department Crash Reconstruction Team, Crime Scene Investigations Unit, Texas Department of Public Safety and the Galveston County District Attorney's Office responded to the scene and provided assistance during the investigation.