Crashes lead to 2 hit-and-run charges
A 43-year-old Greenacres man is accused of crashing his pickup into a parked vehicle twice before witnesses followed him from the scene.
Steven J. Bays was followed from the 14800 block of East Fourth Avenue by a witness who reported his red Ford truck's license plate number to Spokane Valley police.
The truck had knocked into the parked truck in the westbound lane of Fourth about 2 a.m., then backed up and ran into a the truck again before fleeing eastbound, witnesses said. Police impounded the victim vehicle after they weren't able to contact its owner.
Officers traced the license plate to the 18000 block of East Springfield, where they found the red Ford parked the wrong way with damage to its driver's side.
Bays' sister told police he'd recently arrived home but didn't know how his truck was damaged. Bays told police the same thing. Officers believe he was intoxicated and arrested him on a misdemeanor charge of hit-and-run.
The incident came less than a day after a Marshall, Wash., man was arrested for hitting a woman's car in north Spokane and fleeing the scene. Arnold Marvin Knuth, 57, also is accused of resisting arrest.
Spokane County sheriff's deputies say he fought with them as they placed him in handcuffs and received "some minor cuts," according to a news release by Sgt. Dave Reagan.
"Because he was carrying blood pressure medicine, the deputies had paramedics check him out before driving him to jail," Reagan wrote.
The noon-hour crash at Cascade Way and North Division Street caused minor damage to a 43-year-old Spokane woman's car.
She told deputies the other driver "profanely refused to stay to exchange information" but she wrote down the license plate of his red Oldsmobile Cutlass, leading police to identify Knuth as a suspect. Deputies say
Knuth refused to provide a driver's license or other identification, "making a custodial arrest necessary," Reagan said.