Simone WilsonA giant silver Hummer carved a path of destruction through a seaside community in Ventura yesterday evening — running over a mother/daughter on their bicycles and wrecking the pickup of a three-person family, all before fatally smashing into 20-year-old Ventura College student Nick Haverland on Telegraph Road at Mara Avenue.
KTLA reports that Haverland was en route to a final exam on campus; he only had three more miles to go, riding westbound with a friend in the bike lane.
After killing the young college student at about 7 p.m., the reckless driver — Satnam Singh, a 49-year-old Ventura resident — kept driving all the way to his house.
But he wasn't alone. A witness quickly hopped on Singh's trail, closely followed by Ventura police, who demanded he surrender himself as soon as he pulled the Hummer into his driveway. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, he remained “uncooperative”:
Singh did not want to get out of the car and could not, in fact, exit from the driver's side because of damage from the collisions, police said.Officers reported using a police dog to distract Singh as they entered the car from the rear hatch. Singh was transported to Ventura County Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries. He remains in custody.
The spot where 20-year-old Nick Haverland was killed; Credit: KTLA
The Ventura man's other victims include a mother and her 13-year-old daughter, who had also been bicycling along Telegraph — near La Jolla Street — and two parents with their 16-year-old son, riding in a pickup truck at Petit Avenue.
The former two are in the hospital with multiple broken bones. The latter three only sustained minor injuries, but by the looks of their rear-ended vehicle, they're lucky for that — the Hummer came at them full throttle.
KTLA has footage of the damage:
According to the Ventura County Star, Singh was arrested for a felony hit-and-run, but “investigators were still trying to piece together what happened in the hours after the fatal incident, including how the Hummer got smashed.” They're also looking into whether he was drunk. View the entire police report here.
The Ventura County Coroner tells us Haverland celebrated his 20th birthday on March 19 of this year.
A spokeswoman from the president's office at Ventura College says Haverland was enrolled in zoology, field biology and “survey of world religions.” She says she knows of at least one club planning a memorial for the victim: Alpha Gamma Sigma, a community-college honor society.
Did you know Nick Haverland, or witness his tragic death by Hummer last night? Please share below.
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