A Colorado man is charged with drunken driving and reckless driving after he allegedly stopped his pickup in the westbound lanes of Interstate 84 near Baker City on Wednesday evening, Feb. 19, then backed up and crashed into a commercial truck that was also driving westbound.

James Michelle Love, 44, of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, was taken to the Baker County Jail, and later granted a conditional release. He is scheduled to enter a plea in Baker County Circuit Court on April 7 at 9 a.m.

The incident happened around 7:40 p.m. near Milepost 315.5, in the Pleasant Valley area about 11 miles southeast of Baker City, according to a report from Oregon State Police Trooper Tristan Sand, who responded to a report of a crash on the freeway.

In a probable cause affidavit, Sand wrote that the driver of the commercial truck, who reported the crash, claimed the pickup driver was impaired and was holding a container of alcohol, put the container in a backpack and poured liquid outside his truck.

Sand wrote that when he arrived about 8:15 p.m., Love was talking with Deputy Matt Rosin of the Baker County Sheriff’s Office. Rosin told Sand that Love was drinking a bottle of vitamin water when Rosin arrived.

Sand wrote that he could “smell an odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from” Love.

Love was wearing sunglasses, “which was extremely unusual because it was dark outside,” Sand wrote. “I could see that (Love) had a flushed red face.”

Sand wrote that Love told him he has mental health issues and takes many medications. He told Sand he had drunk 3 ounces of alcohol in an 11-hour period. He told Sand he had run out of gas and that his pickup rolled backward. He said he had turned on his emergency flashers.

Sand said that when he asked Love to undergo sobriety tests, Love said he wanted to talk to an attorney.

Sand said he then interviewed the commercial truck driver, Justin Burr Howes, 44.

Howes told Sand there were two other vehicles in a line on the freeway — Love’s pickup and a flatbed pickup.

Howes told Sand that Love’s truck, driving on the freeway, slowed, stopped and began to back up. The collision caused “significant damage” to both vehicles, and both had to be towed.

Howes told Sand that Love pounded on the driver’s side window of Howes’ truck, but Howes didn’t roll down the window.

Sand then interviewed another driver, Jennifer Lynn Hagen, 45, who said she didn’t see the crash but pulled over in front of the two trucks.

Hagen told Sand that she offered to let Love sit in her car because it was cold (about 33 degrees, Sand wrote in his report).

Hagen told Sand that she “smelled a faint odor of an alcoholic beverage” when she first talked to Love. When Love got into her car, “she could smell a very strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from him.”

Love had left a bag in Hagen’s vehicle. Sand said he searched the bag and found a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of wine, both one-quarter full. He also found a tube of marijuana, a burned marijuana joint, and prescription medication for Love.

Sand then arrested Love for DUII. Sand wrote that Love’s eyes were “very bloodshot and glassy.”

Sand drove Love to Saint Alphonsus, where he was checked after he complained of pain in his back, chest and left eye.

Love was also cited for not having a driver’s license and having an open container of alcohol.