Hit-and-run motorist leaves bumper behind

The motorist who smashed into the front of the El Dorado Hotel early Thursday morning and then fled, leaving behind a souvenir – his bumper.

An alert police officer, after hearing about the incident in a briefing later that morning, remembered pulling that car over a week or so earlier.

At around 2:15 a.m. Feb. 19, Sonoma Police responded to the El Dorado Hotel for a report of a hit-and-run motorist who hit a pillar holding up the hotel’s balcony and continued smashing into the hotel’s exterior wall.

An employee, who was sitting at the desk near where the car hit the building, told officers that a silver 4-door Kia with paper license plates and a lot of front end damage left the scene west bound on West Spain Street. According to the witness, the Kia was being driven by a male subject who had a male passenger.

Officers arrived on scene and located the Kia’s front bumper. Witnesses had no other information on the vehicle.

The officers determined that the vehicle was travelling west on Spain Street when, for unknown reasons, it left the roadway, jumped the curb on First Street West, tore out a safety bollard, broke a pillar holding up the hotel balcony, and hit the exterior wall of the hotel.

During a briefing later that morning, Officer Eric Haufler remembered stopping similar vehicle about a week earlier. Haufler found the vehicle parked outside the registered owner’s house. The Kia was missing the front bumper and had damage consistent with a hit-and-run accident.

The bumper also contained a tag with the vehicle’s identification number.

The officer found pieces of wood impaled into the hood of the Kia, which also matched the wood from the wooden post of the El Dorado Hotel.

The owner, 20-year-old Omar Nonato, told Haufler that he was on his way home, had fallen asleep and thought he had hit something.

The report was turned over to the city attorney recommending charges of hit-and-run and driving on a suspended icense.