Randy Travis, the wiry, multi-platinum-selling country crooner with a golden voice that carries enough bass to rattle your silverware, had a tough 2012. In February, he was cited and arrested for public intoxication in front of a Sanger church during the wee morning hours. Later that year, he strode into a Pilot Point convenience store in naught but his skin, purchased cigarettes and shortly thereafter crashed his Trans Am into a construction-zone barricade on a farm-to-market road near his home in Tioga. Another driver came along and discovered a naked Travis sprawled in the middle of the road. He thought the body on the asphalt was a dead deer at first.
"I'm spooked out," the man told a 911 operator. "I don't see a vehicle. There's a couple of cones scattered."
When state troopers responded to the scene, Travis -- a bantamweight at best -- allegedly tried to fight them. On the ride to a local hospital, they claim he threatened to shoot them too. In his mugshot, Travis is indeed sporting a pretty nice shiner, but we'll never truly know what transpired on that deserted stretch of country road -- unless, that is, we see the dashcam video from the squad car.
And it seemed like we never would. A Grayson County judge granted Travis' attorney's motion to destroy the video. But, apparently, someone got an open records request into the Texas Department of Public Safety before the tape was lost forever. Earlier this month, the requester asked for a ruling from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said the good judge had no right to prevent its release.
See also: - Randy Travis, This Time Fully Clothed, Cited This Morning at Plano Church - Randy Travis Proved He Hasn't Lost a Step at Billy Bob's Texas
Now Travis is suing Abbott and DPS to keep the ignominious footage from seeing the light of day, the Austin American-Statesman reports. He's seeking $100,000 and a declaratory judgment barring from release all information about his arrest.
