Veteran Atlanta news anchor Amanda Davis was arrested in Cobb County and charged with driving under the influence early Monday — the same day she was scheduled to make her return to local airwaves.
The arrest also marks her third DUI charge in metro Atlanta.
Cobb County jail records show Davis, 59, was arrested at about 12:50 a.m. Monday and charged with DUI and failure to maintain lane. She was released about five hours later on $1,650 bond.
Cobb County police spokeswoman Alicia Chilton said Davis was pulled over near Atlanta Road’s intersection with Cumberland Parkway, a location about half a mile from the home address listed on Davis’ booking sheet. An incident report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided few details.
“I observed a Mercedes E350 fail to maintain a single lane of travel on Atlanta Road southbound prior to Cumberland Pkwy.,” the arresting officer wrote in the report. “The driver of the vehicle, Amanda Davis, was placed under arrest for DUI after I conducted an investigation.”
It was the second DUI arrest in less than three years for Davis, who was in her 26th year at Fox 5 Atlanta when she was charged with drunk driving in November 2012. She was ultimately found not guilty in that incident — in which she was accused of driving the wrong way down Piedmont Avenue in Midtown and hitting another car — but was ordered to perform 20 hours of community service.
In 1991, Davis was arrested in DeKalb County and charged with DUI and speeding. Police said at the time that she was “weaving across lanes” on Covington Highway and “staggered” out of her vehicle. Her then-7-year-old daughter was also in the car.
Davis, who left Fox 5 following the 2012 arrest, was scheduled to make her debut Monday evening on a CBS46 program called "Just A Minute." She has since "requested leave" for "personal reasons," the TV station said in a statement.
In a recent radio interview with Atlanta station V-103, Davis called the aftermath of her 2012 arrest “awful” and said the incident was “more (a case) of distracted driving” than drunk driving.
"I do understand the dangers and problems of drunk driving," Davis said in the interview, which was posted online June 5.
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