A Shreveport mother is facing eight charges after police say she was drunk and speeding when she crashed her car just after 1:30 a.m. on September 5, seriously injuring her 2-year-old child. Tonnetta Johnson was taken into custody on November 4, two months after the crash that sent her toddler to the hospital with a severe head laceration.
According to KSLA, Johnson admitted to drinking alcohol before getting behind the wheel when investigators questioned her at the hospital. Data pulled from her 2025 Honda Civic showed she was traveling at a high rate of speed before the collision, the station reported. As first noted by Atlanta News First, Johnson was arrested in connection with the crash that injured her young child.
Medical Records Confirmed Elevated Blood Alcohol Level
The toddler suffered a severe head laceration in the crash and was transferred to a trauma center, per the KSLA report. Investigators did not make an arrest right away; instead, they obtained Johnson's medical records on November 4, which confirmed an elevated blood alcohol level, according to the same account. That record pull appears to have been the final piece investigators needed before taking her into custody without incident the same day.
Johnson now faces eight charges, including first-degree vehicular negligent injuring and multiple traffic violations, the station's report notes. A separate, low-confidence detail reported by KTBS indicates police said the 2-year-old was riding in the back seat but was not properly secured in an age-appropriate child safety seat.
Another Shreveport DWI Crash Involved Three Children
Johnson's case follows a similar one in Shreveport just weeks earlier. On July 27, police arrested 34-year-old Jamie M. Young after she lost control of her vehicle while exiting Interstate 20 East on Greenwood Road with three children, ages 2, 6 and 14, inside, according to KTAL. The 6-year-old was ejected from the vehicle and remained in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, while the other two children sustained non-life-threatening injuries, KTAL reported. Police said all three children were unrestrained during that crash.
Young submitted a breath test that registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.19%, well above the legal limit, and was booked into Shreveport City Jail on charges including first-degree vehicular negligent injuring and first-offense DWI, per KTAL's reporting. The two cases, separated by about six weeks, both involve Shreveport mothers accused of driving impaired with young children in the car.
