Anonymous
By an edhat reader
Hit’n’run: A 1980s Chevy Van camper drove into our parked Mazda CX5 on the 400 block of East Cota Street last night and totaled it.
My wife and I were woken by the horrendous scraping sound and went out to our balcony to see a man standing beside his camper dropping F-bombs. When I got down to the street to talk to the driver, or at least try to catch his license plate, he was back in his vehicle and drove away. I whistled very loudly with my fingers while my wife screamed at him from the balcony, but he didn’t stop. I took a look at my car and was shocked by the degree of damage. I ran to the corner of Olive and Cota and saw him a block away and chased after him as he drove at about 20 miles per hour south on Olive Street up to East Montecito street where he turned left. I pointed and waved a very bright flashlight at him, but the driver kept going out of sight. A police officer passed me and asked me where he went and she took off at speed after him.
Meanwhile, the off-white mid-80s “Chevy Van” has flattened the entire driver’s side of our car and damaged all four wheels as it was shoved ten feet down the street, scraping along the curb. The Chevy left some evidence behind. His passenger side 80’s “Chevy Van” metal lettering was all over the street, as well as one of his aluminum awning poles (probably the front one) and his small propane door at the bottom of the passenger side was also ripped off.
The picture I have shows the back of the driver’s vehicle pretty clearly. It is a mid-eighties Chevy Van camper, with orange and brown stripes around the body in the lower half. It will show damage on the passenger side.
If anyone has any information or sees this vehicle on the street, please call the SB Police Department and reference case #21-12324.
Thank you in advance! We are relocating to Oregon next week and sadly, it looks like we’ll be taking a rental.
