Santa Barbara – How do you drive a large recreational vehicle camper through city streets, manage to collide with eight vehicles including a school bus loaded with kids, evade police attempts to bring you forcibly to a stop, and live to tell the tale? You’d need to ask Anthony John Griffin, a 28-year-old Santa Barbara resident to get the answer to that one.
It was just after the lunch hour on Monday, July 13th according to Santa Barbara Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Riley Harwood, that officers responded to a 911 Emergency call reporting an incidence of domestic violence at a downtown residential address. The caller identified Griffin as the perpetrator of the violence against a 55-year-old female cohabitant of his in a “purple-and-white RV, parked on that block,” Harwood reported.
Upon arrival at the residential address, the putative victim of the domestic violence was removed from the area and taken to a safe location while “Griffin stayed inside the RV.” When officers attempted to make contact with Griffin, he summarily fired the vehicle’s ignition, put it in gear, and drove off. “A short time later” he drove back to the scene, but then drove off once again.
It was at that time that officers made an attempt to remove Griffin from the RV, but he did not submit to their efforts and drove away, colliding with two police units at that time. Because of the errant course of Griffin’s driving, pursuit was not initiated through the narrow downtown streets, where he proceeded to collide with a school bus carrying more than 30 children, as well as several parked cars. Only when the RV ground to a halt in the Santa Barbara foothills were police able to take him into custody.
After he was transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital for treatment to several self-inflicted cuts, he was taken to Santa Barbara County Jail and booked on charges of felony domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon, felony evading, and felony hit and run, with his bail set at $500,000.
Photo: courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail
