This document is part of a series about Randall "Duke" Cunningham's attempted murder / suicide on November 25th, 2005
Home page for "Cunningham's Last Battle" web site / Contact the author / victim / witness Russell 'Ace' Hoffman
Sent to: "John Kelleher" <jkellesh at sdsheriff.com> [Note: The ".com" was NOT a valid email address, but it was the one on his business card! -- ACE]
November 28th, 2005
Sheriff John Kelleher, #2004
Traffic Investigator
San Diego County Sheriff's Department
Dear Sir,
First, I would like to thank you again for your help and assistance after the hit-and-run accident Friday night (November 25th, 2005) which my wife and I experienced.
I have talked to my insurance company about the incident and they suggested I provide the police with the additional information I have found out about the car which hit me. That information is included below (mainly in the paragraph which starts: "The part belongs to a CHEVY TRACKER, 1999 to 2004 model" and the next paragraph after it), along with a very detailed description of the event.
As described in the letter below, I believe the part I recovered from the other driver's car contains enough information to identify the car owner positively.
But there might be a simpler way to find him. As described below, I have concluded that I actually had a better look at the driver than I originally thought. It was certainly very brief, but it was very close and reasonably well-lighted.
I had already decided that what I had seen was a middle-aged white male (see complete description, below) when, on television this afternoon, it truly shocked me that the image in my mind matched fairly well the image of Representative Duke Cunningham as he appeared today. I hope it is a fairly simple matter to check if Mr. Cunningham was in town (as opposed to being, say, in Washington, DC), and if he or a close friend or family member owns a car like the one that hit me (a Chevy Tracker, probably blue, as described below). Considering his actions today, it is not much of a stretch to imagine he might have been the apparently distraught and suicidal driver I encountered Friday night. It would be a shame, but it would provide the closure I seek because the behavior we witnessed -- which nearly killed my wife and I -- was severely abnormal, and we gravely fear that whoever it was will strike again, against someone else. For this reason, we feel it is our civic duty to carefully report what we saw, and hope you will be able to give it some additional investigation as soon as possible.
In any event, thank you again for your candor and professionalism Friday night.
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
Note: To save space and download time for you, I have not attached the Google map, which is mentioned in the letter to the insurance company.
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Written November 26th -- 28th, 2005
This statement is regarding a hit-and-run accident which occurred approximately 8:35 pm, Friday, November 25th, 2005 (SMPD incident 4798702). The driver who collided with us was intent on having a head-on collision and had NO intention of turning away. In the moments before impact he was going too fast, straight at us, for him to turn away. This was clearly intentional and he had been planning this crash ever since he came around the "S" turn just West of where the accident actually happened. In other words, despite my attempting to defensively evade him for several seconds (estimated at 5 to 6 seconds, total), he was making an accident nearly impossible to avoid. This is very bizarre behavior.
The driver who did this to us is a terror on our highways and needs to be identified if possible. His determination to have an accident was unprecedented in this driver's three and a half decades of driving. In the final moments, it was only because the other driver was actually accelerating into us and had a much higher rate of speed than I had, that I was able to move my larger, heavier vehicle out of the way. Because I wasn't traveling nearly as fast as he was, I had more maneuverability. In discussions about the accident over this weekend, my neighbors have suggested that it is the 15 years of mountainbiking, in which one often aims -- for a time -- straight at a deadly obstacle, only to turn away at the last moment, combined with knowing my vehicle's handling qualities very precisely, that meant I was able to avoid this driver's intended -- and probably fatal -- head-on collision.
Both types of cars have air-bags, but the closing speed, even if I were motionless at the time of impact (which I could have and would have been), would have been at least 50 to 60 miles per hour. I don't know if the air bags would work THAT well!
Immediately after the impact, the other driver (who went across two to three lanes of traffic after impact, including the middle lane which I was in, almost hitting, or perhaps even lightly hitting, the south side edge of the road) then straightened out and drove away, sometimes STILL on the wrong side of the road for no reason (other than, perhaps, his steering was messed up because the impact was hard enough to knock out a piece of his car, which we collected and is discussed below).
I originally stated that I believed he ran the light at Las Posas and made a right (heading South). I've concluded I was wrong; he probably made a left, because if he did make a right, he did it from the left-hand lane -- that I'm sure of. But I question my original belief that he took a right. It was very far away (more than 1000 feet) and there were a couple of other cars in that intersection. I believe this is important because from the Google aerial photograph it can be seen that a left would go into a large residential area and, apparently, a back entrance to a campus parking lot for the local college. He might live in the residential area, for example.
I do not believe his airbags deployed. His car might have side-impact air bags, but if so, these also did not appear to deploy. His angle of attack was fairly slight at the time of impact --perhaps 20 degrees -- but he was TRYING to hit me as much as he could. There is no way he had suddenly "got religion" and decided to head for his side of the road at that precise moment. Had he turned slightly less hard or made the maneuver as little as 1/20th of a second later there would have been no impact. There was no one else in my lane behind me anywhere close. His was a deliberate and determined act.
There were several witnesses besides my wife (who was sitting in the right passenger seat) and myself. One was standing in the parking lot of the 7-11 across the street and west about 300 feet, who had seen the driver make the "S" turn erratically and at high speed. I have provided his name to my insurance company. There were at least two other witnesses who appeared to be calling 911 immediately after the accident, at least one of whom was apparently a waitress at Sorrento's' Pizza, and whom we can probably locate fairly easily (their phone number is 760-727-4091). Unfortunately, no cars, however, stopped (at least a couple of cars must have seen it all unfold).
I have been able to positively identify the piece of the other driver's car, which we collected at the scene. As described below, this piece can almost surely be used to identify the exact car which was involved in this attack -- and I want to stress that it was NOT a simple "accident." This person was absolutely INTENT on having a head-on collision with the next car that happened to come along -- I have no idea of why.
Also, after thinking about it carefully, I believe I actually managed to see the driver's face better than I realized at first -- enough, for example, to pick him out of a police line-up. He was a middle aged Caucasian male, light-color or graying hair 3 to 5 inches long (he looked a bit like actor Nick Nolte did in his famous mug shot, or like Duke Cunningham looked today as he resigned). The driver looked rather big for such a small vehicle.
The part belongs to a CHEVY TRACKER, 1999 to 2004 model. This closely matches my original description of the car, given to the 911 operator immediately after the accident as being like a Suzuki Samurai but a more current version of something like that. A check on the Internet indicated that that's exactly what the Chevy Tracker is. Suzuki apparently made the Chevy Tracker, aka Geo Tracker, after they stopped making the Samurai for themselves. That's why they are so similar. A call Saturday to the local Tracker dealer (City Chevrolet in San Diego) determined that the eight-digit part number (3002-1208) was indeed for a Chevy Tracker Right Front Fender Wheel Well Liner -- the very spot on his car which hit mine when he turned into me, his last of at least five or six separate aggressive and determined maneuvers we (and others) witnessed in his attempt to have a serious collision.
Importantly, the part has a recent date: 10/12/05 (see photo, attached). They have not made Chevy Trackers since 2004, so this part was obviously from a very recent repair. It also has a "customer number" (504064) which City Chevrolet confirmed was NOT theirs, but a call to the part manufacturer (Chevrolet or its contractor) could determine who the customer is -- a body shop, probably. The part has several other numbers which would help identify it: For instance, a work assignment number (4183239), an order number (482854), and a shipment number (30-163150).
This was NOT an "accident" because the other driver was intentionally boxing me in, aiming straight for me, he NEVER swerved away from me at ANY time, he mimicked and thus nullified my defensive-driving maneuvers which were exactly the sorts of things the California Driver's manual suggests I do (slow down, pull to the right, give way), and he purposefully tried to make escape from a head-on collision impossible. I'm sure he ACCELERATED as we closed the last 150 to 250 feet straight at each other. This lasted more than two seconds, since I was only going about 10 to 20 miles per hour by this time. Even a drunk had plenty of time to turn away and correct his mistakes, but this guy had no intention of doing so.
I could easily have come to a complete stop and waited for impact, but I felt that trying to dash out of the way at the last minute would be better, and that's exactly what I did. All my basic driver training told me to turn RIGHT -- that he would turn to his RIGHT eventually as well, and it was just a sick game. But I had already tried that, and in the event, I believe a slight physical advantage was available by turning to the LEFT, as well as a psychological one. I believe he was aimed ever so slightly to my right, probably because he was trying to plan for my expected attempt to escape to that side again. To the left were three open lanes because traffic had stopped (no one was following while he was driving like a crazy man on the wrong side of the road). So I could make a more radical maneuver on that side than on the other, where there was only one lane and the potential for a traffic problem with another car that had been well behind me to begin with, in the rightmost westbound lane, but I could not be precisely sure of its location without looking away from the madman, which I could not afford to do any more than a batter can look away from a pitcher just as he's about to throw.
Aside from any possible physical advantage because he was aiming just slightly -- mere inches -- to my right, my main reason for cutting left instead of right was simple: This nut was absolutely not planning to go to his lane and avoid an accident at all! He was going too fast to successfully avoid me when I finally cut away, proving (to this driver and his passenger) that the other driver had deadly intent. This is an important point.
Because his speed was approximately three to four times my own, I had the luxury of more maneuverability. This saved our lives.
I'm also sure the ONLY reason we collided at all, after I successfully dodged his head-on collision attempt, was because, when he saw which side I turned away from him to, he intentionally and without reason, turned towards my car. He had already had several SECONDS during which he was beelining straight for us, when he could have turned back to his side of the road, and was clearly not going to do so.
Even so, in a "real" (or "normal") game of "chicken," (which I have never actually played, in a car, on a bike, or in any other fashion) it's my guess that they ALWAYS end (when they don't end in collision) with both drivers turning RIGHT. Therefore, were he in his right mind, my maneuver would have been INSANE and would NOT HAVE WORKED. Fortunately I judged his deadly intent accurately and led him to believe I was resigned to a collision. I feel that surprising him with that maneuver at the end was the only thing that saved us from a head-on collision.
I know the idea that this guy wasn't just playing "chicken" is hard to believe and would be even harder to prove absolutely. I realize it's easy to think that he intended to turn away at the last minute and that all his shenanigans up to that point were random moves by a drunk with some sense of self-preservation but no sense of direction. But that doesn't make sense. I had managed to completely avoid harm to my wife and myself (and the other driver). So why did we collide at all? My wife and I actually had a brief moment when we thought we were past him, but because he turned towards me for no reason (there were no cars in my lane for at least 800 feet behind me), he collided with my back end. To do this he had to have (finally) turned sharply to his right to intentionally try to hit me after I had avoided his planned head-on collision.
If his car was stolen and found abandoned later, I understand we will probably not be able to solve this case, but if the car is at someone's home, I think this should be investigated. Whoever did this needs some serious treatment for psychotic and dangerous behavior. In the course of this event he made numerous moves which made it clear that neither maneuvering to avoid him, nor stopping completely, was going to avoid the accident he was intent on causing. His actions from the moment he came around the "S" curve were deliberate and intended to corral me into a head-on collision. I believe he was accelerating at the time of the actual collision, going well over 50 and probably over 60 miles per hour, and intent on creating a bloodbath. I have been driving for nearly 35 years -- an estimated 3/4s of a million miles -- and this is by far the craziest thing I have ever seen. My wife and I are both now terrified of driving, and are having trouble sleeping and concentrating on life and work -- although we also feel grateful to BE alive, and grateful to the San Marcos sheriff's department for their response at the scene.
I hope that providing this detailed information will help make California roads safer.
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
Attached are two items:
1) A Google satellite photo of the area. [NOT ATTACHED TO LETTER TO JOHN KELLEHER]
2) Scan of the part tag from the scene of the accident. I personally saw the other driver roll over this part and leave it in the road, and I also know it was not there when I went by that very same spot moments ago and used it as an escape route from this madman, so it must have come off his car.
Note: The Investigating Officer was:
Sheriff John Kelleher, #2004
Traffic Investigator
San Diego County Sheriff's Department
San Marcos Sheriff's Station
San Marcos CA 92069
(760) 510-....
"John Kelleher" <jkellesh@sdsheriff.com>
Incident #4798702