Brookville officer describes unusual DUI arrest of man operating Amish horse & buggy

Jefferson Co., PA (WJAC) — Last week, a Brookville Police officer says he pulled over an Amish buggy and charged the driver with driving under the influence.

Officer Shawn Hollobaugh said a normal evening of patrolling led to one of the weirdest traffic stops of his career.

“Oh, it’s in the top 10, trust me. Maybe top five," he joked. "It’s definitely unusual to say the least.”

In what ended up being an odd patrol outing last Sunday evening, officer Shawn Hollobaugh arrested a man for operating his Amish horse and buggy while under the influence near the intersection of Valley and Main streets in Brookville.

“As we went to the intersection, he kind of sped up a little bit, locked the brakes, the buggy slid sideways throwing sparks from the wheels," he recalled. "He went up over, started up over Valley Street about a hundred yards up, he pulled on over to the side of the roadway, stopped, and I pulled up aside and asked him if he was okay. He said 'sure,' and I could tell that there's something not right with him as far as his speech and so forth.”

But can you actually be driving under the influence if you’re not, well, driving?

“The section reads it’s a vehicle, doesn’t say motorized vehicle, which could be anything from -- in this case a horse and buggy -- to a pedal cycle, the e-bikes that have electric motors on them, lawnmowers -- you name anything that you could be on the highway with, or a roadway in traffic, can be considered a DUI,” he explained.

And since Amish don’t typically have driver’s licenses...

“It’s a lot different than just a typical -- when you hand me your driver’s license, even if it’s just an ID and I can get all the information I need, I had nothing with that, it was just his name and date of birth, that was it.”

Hollobaugh says it could’ve ended really badly.

“When they’re driving a horse, something that size, it’s not like hitting -- we have a lot of deer in the area. There’s people who either know someone that’s done it or have had it to them, where they’ve struck a deer. This is about a 180 pound to 200-pound animal. This horse probably runs around 1,200 pounds or better, pure black, and if he had lost control, and that horse got into another lane, it would’ve been a very serious accident," he said.

But fortunately, it was just an out of the ordinary traffic stop that he'll remember.

“I’ve been here almost 20 years, and I never thought I’d ever see something like that," he said. "You could’ve told me that and I would’ve not believed you at first but then, you know, there it was right in front of me happening.”

The preliminary hearing for the man is scheduled for April 14th at 9:15 a.m.

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