Truck Plows Into Yard; Driver Held

A 22-year-old Ventura man was arrested after his truck plowed through a yard near Ventura High School on Thursday, then crashed into a minivan parked next door. He was booked into County Jail on suspicion of drunk driving, authorities said.

Police Officer Eric Jensen said that when he tried to give the driver, Justin Tetreault, a field sobriety test after the 3:40 p.m. accident, Tetreault said he was going to move the badly damaged truck. “He continued away from me and when I grabbed him by the arm, he tried to pull away,” Jensen said.

Tetreault ended up on the hood of Jensen’s squad car, and officers placed him under arrest.

Tetreault told officers he was upset over the death of a friend, Nick Dowey, at a party last weekend in Ojai.

Dowey, 21, was beaten to death. A witness to the incident said Dowey was the victim of brutality at the hands of a sheriff’s deputy who allegedly clubbed him over the head with a flashlight. But a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said Monday that other witnesses at the party contradicted that account. Dowey had already been beaten with a baseball bat or crowbar by someone at the party.

Tetreault was taken to County Jail and given an alcohol breath test.

“He was well over the limit,” Jensen said.

In addition to obstructing an officer, Tetreault was booked on suspicion of felony drunk driving, Jensen said.

His girlfriend, who was riding in the passenger seat, suffered minor injuries.

Witnesses said Tetreault ran a stop sign on Poli Street at Lincoln Drive.

“He came up on me real fast,” said Tamir Reagan of Ventura. “I stopped at the stop sign and he just ripped around me.”

Witnesses said the truck continued east at high speed toward Pacific Avenue. “He ran the stop sign and then I saw the truck go on two wheels,” Reagan said.

Other witnesses said a woman sitting in the passenger side of the truck opened the door while the truck was moving, and then slammed it shut.

The truck crossed into the westbound lane at Santa Rosa Street, ran onto the sidewalk and across the front yard at 1881 Poli St., witnesses said. The owner of that house said she had just spent $160 on the hedge, which was destroyed as the truck rolled across her yard.

Next door at 1897 Poli St., Craig Woods said he and his son Seth were sitting down when the truck slammed into the family’s new Dodge minivan parked in the driveway.

“We got the car two weeks ago,” Woods said.

In addition to causing major damage to the minivan, the truck destroyed a portion of the Woods family’s white picket fence.