Atlantic City re-entry leader admits drinking before driving in Galloway police footage

An Atlantic City re-entry program leader has admitted to drinking before driving to a crash involving her son, according to video footage obtained by BreakingAC.

“Yeah, I had a couple of cocktails,” Michele Griffin tells a Galloway Township police officer at one point. “I was at home.”

Griffin continues to insist she is not drunk, even when Officer Cassidy Walsh cuffs her after failing a breathalyzer test.

Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small declined to comment on the arrest or whether it would affect Griffin’s job.

Bodycam footage of the June 1 incident was obtained by BreakingAC through a request under the Public Access Act.

Griffin, 44, who lives in the community, was not involved in the original accident.

She was at home drinking Hennessy when she received a phone call from her son, Jeffery Callaway, she told police.

Callaway, 20, overturned his white Kia after hitting a parked car on Buchanan Avenue in the township around 10:40 p.m.

Callaway told police that with the car on the roof, he was able to grab his phone and crawl out, before calling his mother.

Griffin, who said she lives around the corner, picked up her son and drove him back home, then got back in her car and returned to the scene of the accident.

Sgt. First Class Vincent Ceci asked why she left and then returned later.

“You knew you were drinking,” he tells Griffin. “You came here and then you left and then you came back. So you drove three times.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she replies.

“That’s because you’re driving drunk,” he says.

Callaway would later explain that his mother had picked him up, but they were concerned about her car’s broken light, so they drove home to park and planned to walk back to the scene of the accident later.

He walked back, but then saw his mother driving towards him.

Griffin said she planned to walk back as well, but “because of my asthma I said, ‘fuck it,’ I’m going to drive back,” she told Ceci.

“While you were drinking,” he replied.

“I didn’t drink that much,” she said.

“You’re drunk,” Ceci said.

“I’m not drunk,” she said.

“You’re quite drunk,” he said to her.

“I’m not drunk,” she replied as she walked away.

She would later say she was driving back because she had been discharged from the hospital 14 days earlier with congestive heart failure.

Both mother and son were to undergo a field test for alcohol use.

Sergeant Ron Gorneau noticed a significant amount of marijuana in Callaway’s overturned car and asked when he had last smoked.

“Yesterday,” Callaway told him. “I’ll be honest with you.”

Gorneau then said he just wanted to make sure Callaway wasn’t compromised. The sergeant quickly gave him the go-ahead.

Griffin was later told she needed to get tested because she had driven herself to the scene of the accident.

She said she would take a test.

“I’m not that drunk,” Griffin said. “Certainly not.”

But Walsh would decide otherwise.

“I’m on federal parole,” Griffin said as she was handcuffed.

Her car had to be towed under John’s Law, the officers explained to her and her son.

Before the car was towed, it was searched. Video footage shows an officer finding a red solo cup that he sniffs and that smells of rum.

“How the f— did I get into this?” Griffin can be heard saying from the back of the patrol car.

Once at the police station, Griffin expresses her regret for coming to her son’s aid.

“I should have left that stupid mother (swear word) lying around the corner,” she said.

No video of a breath test is shown. But Griffin’s pending citations include a refusal to yield.