Jeffrey Hunker, a former Carnegie Mellon University professor charged last year with drunken driving three times in eight days, was charged with DUI again on Thanksgiving after police said he smashed into a parked car in Shadyside and pulled away when an officer approached him.

City officers from Zone 4 arrested him in a parking lot about a mile from his apartment on Shady Avenue.

The incident began at about 7 p.m., when police responded to a call for a hit-and-run at Shady and Walnut Street. When an officer arrived, according to an affidavit, he spotted a damaged grey BMW heading down Walnut and activated his lights to pull it over. The officer watched as the car drove through a red light at South Negley Avenue and nearly hit another car.

When Mr. Hunker pulled over at Walnut and Bellefonte Street, the officer got out to approach but said Mr. Hunker drove off.

He drove about four blocks to Walnut and South Aiken Avenue, police said, where he pulled into a parking a lot and stopped.

When police asked him to put his hands out the window, he initially did not comply. He later failed a field sobriety test and a breath test at the Zone 4 station.

Police couldn't find anyone to drive him home, so they took him to jail.

It wasn't clear yesterday how long he was there. He didn't return a message left at his home.

After his third arrest last year, he had been released into the custody of a man named Mike Vargo, who said he was writing a book with Mr. Hunker. But Mr. Vargo's phone has been disconnected and he couldn't be reached yesterday.

Mr. Hunker's lawyer, James Cirilano, also couldn't be reached for comment.

Mr. Hunker, 52, once President Bill Clinton's chief of cyber-security, came to Pittsburgh in 2001 and was living on Squirrel Hill Avenue last year, when police arrested him three times on drunken driving charges on Aug. 17, 19 and 25.

In the first instance, neighbors said he backed out of his driveway, drove through a neighbor's yard, knocked over a tree, hit a car and smashed into a house.

Although the district attorney's office and a judge described him as a danger to the community, he was allowed to check into an alcohol-treatment center in Virginia and avoided jail pending trial. Those charges still are pending.

Mr. Hunker has been in rehab at least twice before in Pennsylvania and Oregon. He also has a previous DUI from a 2004 crash in Squirrel Hill that he had expunged from his record.

When he was charged in the 2008 incidents, he was an adjunct professor of technology and policy at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management. He is no longer affiliated with CMU but still runs his own cyber-security company, Jeffrey Hunker Associates.

The 2008 charges are set to go to trial in February, although both sides have been working on a plea deal.

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