Prison guard locked up after crashing through large iron gate, SC sheriff says
A woman who works as an officer for the South Carolina Department of Corrections was arrested over the weekend after she crashed a vehicle into a large iron gate, according to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
Naji Capri Hughes, 26, was charged with DUI (first offense) and leaving the scene of an accident with property damage, the sheriff’s department said Monday in a news release.
The charges followed an incident that happened late Saturday night, according to the release. Just before midnight, deputies responded to reports of a wrong-way driver near the 7800 block of Farrow Road, the sheriff’s department said. That’s in a part of Columbia near Exit 72 on I-20.
The person who reported the incident said the wrong-way driver was being dangerous, an incident report shows. The caller said that the wrong-way driver had turned into the parking lot of Keenan High School and crashed through a large black iron swing arm gate, according to the incident report. The collision broke the gate’s chain open and warped the metal of one of the gate’s swing arms, the incident report shows.
“Around the swing gate arm also was freshly moved earth that had yet settled showing it was very fresh in occurrence,” the sheriff’s department said in the incident report.
The caller also showed deputies a video of the wrong-way driver, whose vehicle crossed left of the center line and ran into a ditch before returning to the road and running off the right side and into another ditch, according to the incident report.
Deputies located the driver, later identified as Hughes, about 2 miles away from Farrow Road, on Pisgah Church Road, and made a traffic stop, according to the release.
When the deputy made contact with Hughes, he said that she had “a very odorous smell of an alcoholic beverage about her breath and person, and very slurred speech,” the incident report shows. When Hughes was asked to get out of the vehicle she was driving she fell into the door, according to the incident report.
After a field sobriety test, which showed she was “very impaired,” Hughes was arrested and her vehicle was towed, the sheriff’s department said.
At the sheriff’s department, Hughes failed to correctly use a breathalyzer machine, which resulted in an outcome of refusing to take the test, according to the incident report.
She was then taken to the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, the sheriff’s department said. Hughes’ bond was set at $1,224.50 on the combined charges and has been posted, Richland County court records show.
Hughes is scheduled to return to court April 24, according to judicial records.
Hughes, who was an officer in training, was fired, South Carolina Department of Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain told The State on Monday.
When the incident over the weekend occurred, Hughes was out on a $1,500 bond from an October 2025 arrest where she was charged with hit-and-run, court records show. That charge is pending.
In the past decade, Hughes has been cited multiple times for speeding, according to court records.
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This story was originally published February 9, 2026 at 11:33 AM.
