A Mission Valley pastor tracked down a man on the run from police and tried to convince the man it’s not worth it to keep running.
Frank Giovinetti witnessed an accident between a Nissan Altima and a Volkswagon Jetta on Waring Road just south of Orcutt around 10 p.m. Wednesday.
As he was at a nearby convenience store in Allied Gardens, he heard the loud screeching sound and saw one of the cars plow into two other cars.
The driver then left the scene.
He jumped into his truck, ran to help the victims and once they seemed okay, he followed what he called a trail of car parts and fluid until he found the suspect’s car in a nearby cul de sac.
“I just told him, ‘Bro, you are making things way worse by not sitting here and you're going to go to jail for a long, long time if you don't just stop and sit down,’” the Mission Valley Christian Fellowship pastor told the suspect.
Giovinetti said the driver appeared to be very drunk and kept telling him to just leave him alone.
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When he called 911 dispatchers, they told him not to chase down the suspect.
Giovinetti said that after what happened in the Trayvon Martin case, he didn’t want to “be a part of that.”
But he said he felt it was his duty to help.
He said he just did “what every American citizen should do when they witness a crime instead of turning the other way and pretend they don’t see anything.
“Nobody takes responsibility for their actions and nobody likes to get involved with something if it takes up their time.”
The hit-and-run suspect was taken into custody. One woman in the second car was taken to a nearby hospital with minor injuries.
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