A Hamilton County Sheriff's Office corrections employee was caught apparently intoxicated and "going through a Ford F150" by a Chattanooga police officer early Tuesday morning.
It was just one of 14 vehicles 23-year-old Samuel Bruns burglarized or vandalized throughout the morning in the parking garage of the Five Points Northshore apartment building, according to Hamilton County court records.
Officers found a trail of blood on the floors of the building and bloodied door handles, court records show. Miscellaneous items were found strewn throughout the stairwell leading into the garage.
Samuel Bruns mugshotSeveral vehicles were found with broken out windows, and Bruns' hands and arms were bloodied - injuries that indicated he'd broken the glass and reached inside, officers noted. Blood was found inside and outside most of the vehicles.
Some vehicles had dents, and a new motorcycle had been pushed over, causing damage, court records state. Items from the vehicles were thrown all around the garage.
When officers found Bruns, he was on the third level of the garage and was throwing things out it.
One of the officers recognized Bruns from earlier that night when an Uber driver called police after Bruns was so intoxicated he couldn't give the driver a home address, according to court documents. By the time the officer arrived, Bruns was getting into another car with a female friend who told the officer she was taking him home.
She laughed when the officer asked if they were OK, and said Bruns just drank too much, the officer wrote. Bruns said he was fine and was headed home.
Most of the vehicles he allegedly vandalized were not registered with the apartment complex and were from out of state, but attempts to contact vitims are still ongoing, according to court records. That means more charges could be filed at a later time.
But for now, Bruns faces 10 counts of burglary and 10 counts of vandalism. He was arrested and booked into the Hamilton County Jail on a $20,000 bond.
Bruns was hired on May 28, 2019 and is currently on paid administrative leave while under internal investigation, according to a Hamilton County Sheriff's Office news release.
He was previously arrested in April 2017 for driving under the influence after, according to online jail records.
Burns' father called 911 because he was under the influence of drugs, crashed into a camper - though, it didn't cause any damage - and was trying to drive again to go out with friends, according to an arrest report.
Bruns, who was 20 at the time, told responding sheriff's deputies that he had been awake for four days and that he had been taking Xanax and smoking marijuana, the arrest report states. He also admitted to stealing $5 from his mother and that he was trying to buy drugs with it.
The deputies noted he had trouble forming complete sentences and was falling over.
At the time, Bruns was "taken into custody, placed in handcuffs, double locked and checked for proper fit," the arrest report states. But while in route to the jail, he slipped out of his handcuffs and "asked [the deputy] to put them back on him."
While at the jail, he told authorities he'd "be out in 5 days smoking 'weed,' crack and will be drunk driving again in 2 weeks."
Bruns pleaded guilty to reckless driving and received a sentence of six months of supervised probation under the house arrest system, online court records show.
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