Driver Convicted in Four-Vehicle DUI Crash

Nov. 18, 2021 – A motorist who admitted drinking on his birthday was convicted Wednesday on 11 criminal charges stemming from a four-vehicle accident in 2018 that critically injured one of his two sons in the backseat of his car, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

     A Criminal Court jury convicted 37-year-old Derrick Lynn Harris on two counts each of vehicular assault, reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, and DUI; four counts of DUI-child endangerment, and reckless driving.

    Harris will be sentenced in January. 

    The crash occurred around 10:30 p.m. on July 7, 2018, when Harris was driving at a high rate of speed southbound on Raleigh-Millington Road near King’s Glen Drive in North Memphis.

     Investigators said Harris’s vehicle rear-ended another vehicle, causing a chain reaction that damaged two more cars. His 9-year-old son was hospitalized with critical injuries, while his 11-year-old son was hospitalized as non-critical. Neither child was properly restrained, investigators said.

    Harris did poorly on a field-sobriety test and his blood-alcohol was .211. He told one officer, “Yeah, I been drinking. It’s my birthday.”

     Jurors deliberated 40 minutes before returning their verdicts.

    The case was handled by Asst. Dist. Atty. Vanessa Murtaugh of the District Attorney’s DUI Unit which works with law enforcement to reduce the number of DUI-related fatalities and injuries in Shelby County.