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Berkeley Police Response to Reported Car-Protester Collision
From: "Rolleri, Rico" <RRolleri@cityofberkeley.info>
Date: January 23, 2019 at 8:19:35 PM PST
To: "Williams-Ridley, Dee" <DWilliams-Ridley@
Cc: "Greenwood, Andrew" <AGreenwood@cityofberkeley.
Subject: Re: Felony hit and run at corner of Telegraph and Durant yesterday afternoon
Good evening Dee,
I was able to locate this incident on our mobile system and just finished reading the draft report. The incident occurred at about 12:09 yesterday afternoon at the intersection of Telegraph and Durant. Several officers immediately responded to the report of a collision between a vehicle and a pedestrian at that location.
The preliminary summary of what appears to have happened is this... A male about 20 years old was driving his parents’ car north on Telegraph Ave, uninvolved with the protest. He drove up behind what he described as a large group of people who were walking in the middle of the street and appeared to be protesting. According to the driver, at least two or three people from the group turned towards him unprovoked and began hitting his car, throwing food on it and threw beverages at it as well. He said they continued to attack his car by hitting the doors and front end. He decided to attempt to drive away from the attack by (incorrectly) turning west on Durant Ave (the wrong way) where he was blocked in and felt he was still under attack. He chose to drive up on the sidewalk to escape the area. He reports that he did not know that he hit the foot of the person located on the sidewalk or a bike belonging to another person in the group. He continued driving on the sidewalk and escaped the area.
BPD officers have identified 14 witnesses at this point. From what I’ve read, it appears that almost all of their statements indicate that pedestrians/protestors were attacking the vehicle before it drove away on Durant. From what I can tell, besides the cell phone video sent by Councilmember Davila, it appears officers recovered security video from at least one business that captured all or some of this incident. The officers were able to obtain the license plate of the vehicle and tracked down the vehicle owner (the driver’s father) who reports at least $2,000 worth of damage to his car. He advised his son told him about the attack and did not report hitting anyone or anything. He took his son back to the scene to see if they could locate the people who damaged his vehicle with no luck. He was preparing to call BPD when he received a call from one of our officers.
The man who was lying on the sidewalk, hit by the vehicle, was transported by BFD to Alta Bates. At this point in the report, he is reported to have abrasions to his foot. There is no other report of injuries and no report of broken bones. Although he is blind, he reports he could hear protestors “attempting to stop a vehicle” and “a protestor was vandalizing a vehicle.” He reports the vehicle ran over both of his feet.
The investigation is on-going but hopefully this summary will give you enough information to allow you to respond to Councilmember Davila. Please let me know if you need anything else.
Respectfully,
Rico
Captain Rico Rolleri
Sent from my iPad
