A hit-and-run driver who allegedly ignored the pleas of his injured victim to call 911 for assistance has been captured.
The injury collision happened at the corner of Chiles Road and La Vida
Brian Douglas Cassidy, 58, who had frustrated authorities’ efforts to track him down for two weeks, is suspected of fleeing the scene of a crash near the intersection of Chiles Road and La Vida Way in South Davis on December 17. Before fleeing, Cassidy told Nikolas Kostelny, the injured victim, “Stop yelling at me. … I ain’t calling s—.” The injured motorcyclist remembered Cassidy’s callousness in an interview with the Davis Enterprise a week after the collision.
Kostelny seriously injured his arm in the crash; he was in the hospital for three weeks and forced to take a year off from his job as a roofer.
Davis police Sgt. Rod Rifredi, whose efforts led to the arrest of Cassidy, resorted to low-tech detection techniques to crack the case; beginning with the crash site, Rifredi drove in all possible directions the hit-and-run driver could have taken to flee. Eventually, Rifredi turned into the Rancho Yolo, a senior citizen mobile home community, where he discovered Cassidy’s damaged Jeep Patriot parked outside his trailer on Outer Circle. Rifredi deduced the damage could logically have occurred in the crash.
A neighbor in Rancho Yolo spotted Cassidy and alerted police.
“It was definitely the car,” said Rifredi, who seized the vehicle. Further investigation revealed there was evidence left at the collision scene that matched Cassidy’s vehicle, and he found further associative proof inside the Jeep. Rifredi declined to reveal the nature of this evidence.
For another week, Davis police officers’ efforts to contact Cassidy failed. Either he was not at home or did not answer knocks at this door. Finally, on January 29, a tipster in the trailer park informed DPD that Cassidy had just entered his trailer. Upon their arrival, officers arrested Cassidy.
He is currently being held at Yolo County Jail on $105,000 bond. Rifredi said Cassidy has had prior drunken-driving convictions in Contra Costa County.
