Santa Barbara County – The City of Santa Maria, now the largest metropolitan area within Santa Barbara County, appears to have become a traffic cop’s dream—or nightmare, depending upon the perspective taken. In terms of “staying busy”, it’s certainly an ideal venue for traffic enforcement activity of a high volume. In terms of coping with violent, erratic, and criminally reckless drivers, the wide open streets of the city seem to attract disaster.
Evidence of the latter perspective once again became clear just after midnight on February 15th when, according to Santa Maria Police Department spokesman Sgt. D. Schneider, Officer R. Flores made an attempt to conduct a routine traffic enforcement stop pursuant to his observation of a broken tail light on a vehicle he suspected of being operated by a driver under the influence of alcohol.
When Flores—driving a marked black-and-white patrol car with red lights ablaze–pulled the car being driven by Alvaro Venegas, 25, to the curb, Venegas immediately gunned his accelerator and sped off into the night. With the SMPD black-and-white following behind, it wasn’t long before the suspect vehicle went out of control and crashed into a trio of parked vehicles.
As the police black-and-white arrived at the crash scene, Venegas was observed sprinting away on foot, leaving behind “an adult female and a small child inside his vehicle,” Schneider reported. In addition to those two, there were five people inside one of the parked vehicles impacted by Venegas’ car, including a toddler and two infant children.
All seven passengers in the two cars were transported to Marian Medical Center for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.
At the time of this reporting, Alvara Venegas remains at large and is sought by authorities on charges of DUI hit and run and felony child endangerment.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
Read more:
Santa Maria Times: Police seek driver for hit and run
