Councilman Clayton Perry repeated that phrase over and over again in the backyard of his Northeast Side home on Sunday night when San Antonio Police Officer Patrick Des Rosiers asked him what he had been doing that evening.
This is what Perry’s “good time” looked like:
He caused a disturbance in the drive-thru lane at a Bill Miller Bar-B-Que; crashed his black Jeep Wrangler head-on into a Honda Civic on Redland Road; bolted from the scene, without regard to the physical state of the two people in the Civic; sped right through a stop sign and slammed his vehicle into his house’s garage door; left his car running; crashed out on a sidewalk in his backyard; and mumbled vague denials when Des Rosiers started asking him questions.
Perry’s gray hair was matted with blood. His tan cargo shorts were unzipped and stained with what looked like urine. His breath smelled of alcohol. He couldn’t figure out how to get into his house. He tried to enter through a back door using his credit cards as keys.
Good times rarely get so depressing.
Screen grabs from the body camera of a responding SAPD officer. The video is labeled Critical Incident Video Release of Hit & Run Investigation on 11/6/22 and shows San Antonio City Council member Clayton Perry in his back yard on November 6, 2022.
Video courtesy of San Antonio Police Department.The Perry we see in body-cam footage released Thursday by the San Antonio Police Department is so pathetic, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the retired Air Force civil engineer and loyal Texas Aggie who has been the gregarious voice of fiscal conservatism on City Council since 2017.
It’s hard, but not impossible.
The reason I can’t spare any sympathy for Perry is because his reckless behavior put other people’s lives at serious risk. It’s a miracle he didn’t kill someone on Sunday night.
According to the manager at Bill Miller, Perry, 67, was so out of it that he never ordered any food and tried to hand over his keys and wallet at the takeout window.
A few minutes later, he was at the intersection of Jones Maltsberger and Redland roads.
Perry turned right from Jones Maltsberger to Redland. A median divides the two directions of traffic on Redland Road. To drive head-on into another vehicle, as Perry did, you have to go around that median.
That’s not just a sloppy wide turn. It’s the action of someone who is not in command of their faculties — someone with no business being behind the wheel of any vehicle.
Once we get past the profound irresponsibility of driving in such a state, we have to think about the act of fleeing the scene of an accident you caused.
At various times during their encounter in Perry’s backyard, Officer Des Rosiers asked the councilman if he was concerned about the people in the car he apparently hit. Perry never acknowledged their existence.
For that matter, he never admitted to the officer that he was involved in an accident that night.
“Nope, not me,” Perry repeatedly said to Des Rosiers.
If not for the fact that the manager at Bill Miller took down Perry’s license-plate number and called the police, and that a witness to the subsequent crash followed the councilman to his house, Perry might have gotten away with his night of mayhem.
As it stands, he faces charges of fleeing the scene of an auto accident and driving while intoxicated.
Perry was known to brag at City Hall about his drinking and night-life exploits.
During a brief Thursday interview with reporters after turning himself in at the Bexar County Courthouse, however, the councilman deflected questions about whether or not he was intoxicated Sunday night. He took a similar stance when asked if he planned to resign.
It’s obvious that Perry needs help. It’s also obvious that he is firmly in denial about that need for help.
In a statement Perry released Wednesday, which provided the councilman’s first acknowledgment of his role in the car crash, he found a way to avoid responsibility — and downplay the gravity of his behavior.
“I clearly hit my head and don’t really remember it,” he said. This line was sadly reminiscent of Ted Kennedy’s 1969 excuse for waiting 10 hours before reporting the Chappaquiddick car accident that took the life of Mary Jo Kopechne.
Perry added: “I’m very sorry for the hassle this is causing everyone.”
A “hassle” is what you experience when you temporarily lose your Wi-Fi connection. It’s not a term I would associate with a potentially lethal hit-and-run car crash.
There’s a legal standard at play here and a separate political standard.
Like anyone else in his situation, Perry deserves the presumption of innocence from our legal system. But we’ve already seen and heard enough to know that he should immediately resign from City Council.
He owes it to the residents of his district. He owes it to his council colleagues. He might not realize it right now, but he also owes it to himself.
ggarcia@express-news.net| Twitter: @gilgamesh470
