Owner of struck car unhappy about no citations
Staff writer
It was basically little more than a fender bender, even if damages from a downtown traffic mishap Nov. 30 at Marion’s Holly Jolly Christmas are likely to exceed $1,000.
Still, both parties involved — a high school student working the event as a singing elf and a high school coach providing hot chocolate — took the unusual step last week of reaching out to the Record to complain about how the accident was reported by Marion police.
According to an accident report by interim police chief Zach Hudlin, Keri Collett, 36, wife of city councilman Zach Collett, improperly backed a 2013 Toyota Sienna into a diagonal parking stall in the 300 block of E. Main St. and struck an illegally parked 2012 Nissan Maxima owned by Karissa Spence.
Hudlin marked the accident as a “hit and run” on his report but issued no citations because he judged the accident to be the fault of both drivers. With the Maxima parked on the stall’s dividing line, he decided to “call it even.”
Hudlin said Collett told him she apologized to Willow Spence, who had been driving her mother’s car, and told Willow she would go to CB Baked Goods, owned by Collett’s mother-in-law, about a block away.
Hudlin referred to the wreck as a hit-and-run nonetheless.
When Collett came to the Record office Dec. 11, she contended the article could cause her to lose her job.
She is a volleyball coach at the high school and marketing director for St. Luke Hospital.
When Karissa and Willow Spence came in, they were angry Collett had not been ticketed.
Willow Spence said Collett never apologized, raised her voice and told her the accident was her fault for being parked with one of the car’s tires on the inner edge of the stall line.
Willow denied that Collett had told her where she was going.
“She said if I needed her, she would be around town,” Willow said.
Willow was so upset she stepped inside a business to call her mother.
Karissa said her daughter was crying so hard on the call that she could barely speak. She said she told her daughter to call police. When she did and came back outside, Collett was gone.
Karissa objected to Hudlin not seeking charges or referring the matter to the county attorney for a determination.
“It is not his job to be the judge and jury. It’s not his job to decide it was even,” Karissa said.
Karissa, a longtime teacher in Wichita schools, questioned Collett’s behavior in dealing with Willow, a high school senior.
“There was a perfect teaching moment there for the teacher to show her how to handle a minor accident,” Karissa said. “She’s teaching accountability, and she didn’t take accountability.”
In Kansas, leaving the scene of an accident is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 if damage exceeds $1,000. Punishment can include probation or jail time.
Karissa said her insurance company’s estimate of damage to the car was $1,300.
Despite multiple messages, Keri Collett did not contact the Record to respond to the Spences’ comments.
In her initial conversations with the Record, Collett insisted damage was extremely minor — a scrape of only about an inch.
She offered to show the damage on her van. When the Spences arrived, they did show the damage to their car — a scrape several feet long, spanning two doors, and a scuff near a taillight.
They also produced a photo of how the car was parked with one tire barely touching the stall’s dividing line.