The dispatch call was an odd one: a vehicle going uphill on Oak was reported to have knocked over two motorcycles, and stuck in place atop the bikes.
Hood River Police officer Emy Delancy responded Friday at about 2:30 p.m, to the report, in the 200 block of Oak in front of The Gift House. Delancy, and passersby and shop workers, found a strange scene: an unoccupied Jeep had knocked down two new Honda motorcycles, the bumper of the Jeep pinning one of the bikes to the pavement on the north side (west-bound) of Oak.
The odd part was that the Jeep’s engine was running and the vehicle was in drive with its doors locked.
Joann Esparmer of The Gift Shop said the two couples in the rented Jeep had come into the shop about 20 minutes earlier asking about local restaurants, so it was assumed they were dining somewhere close by. The bike owners could not immediately be located, but word got to them at Double Mountain Brewery that their bikes had been damaged, and they came running.
No one saw the Jeep hit the bikes, but Ellen Barber of Ananas heard it, and said she thought her sidewalk clothes rack had been knocked over.
The Jeep was evidently prevented from moving forward by the motorcycle it had pinned down. Oak Street inclines slightly uphill at that location.
Delancy called for a tow, and about the time the truck arrived, the driver of the Jeep, William Malloy of Cheraw, South Carolina, arrived on the scene. He and his companions claimed they had switched the car to park and turned the motor off.
“I don’t know how it jumped out of gear,” Malloy said.
Delancy said no citations would be issued.
Bike owners Chris Gonzalez and Jamie Lorenzo of Portland told Delancy the damages would total about $1,500, in addition to the cost or renting a trailer to tow the bikes back to Portland. They were traveling with a friend, Holly Schor.
“We are not going to risk riding them,” Gonzalez said.
The odd incident got a bit stranger just as Delancy was finishing his interviews: a bystander witnessed a vehicle brush the bumper of a parked vehicle across the street, leaving a dent on the fender. Delancy reached for his radio and began calling in the plate of the moving vehicle. After backing up as if to park, the woman behind the wheel pulled out and left the scene, heading south on Second Street.
No details on the apparent hit-and-run, witnessed by an officer, were available at press time.
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