Sebastopol man arrested in hit-and-run and again on drug charge

<p>The old adage about returning to the scene of the crime proved fateful for a Sebastopol man who was released from jail after an alleged hit-and-run accident only to be arrested again 2 1/2 hours later, authorities said.</p><p>Christopher Thomas Binion, 39, was out in the dark early Thursday morning trying to find something he'd apparently dropped in the road the previous night when an officer patrolling the area went to question him and decided he was under the influence of drugs, police said.</p><p>The ink on Binion's jail release papers had barely dried by then, and it wasn't even nine hours after his first run-in with authorities, stemming from an incident in which he's suspected of veering up on a sidewalk and hitting an Analy High School student walking there.</p><p>The pedestrian, Pablo Taskey, suffered minor injuries in Wednesday's 5:24 p.m. crash at Jewell and Hayden avenues, authorities said. He was treated for his injuries at Palm Drive Hospital, and later released.</p><p>Police said Binion struck Taskey in a white GMC van, then made a U-turn and tried to drive away before another motorist pulled across the road and cut off his escape.</p><p>Police who interviewed Binion arrested him for suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs and causing bodily injury - a felony — hit and run with injuries, and violation or probation, authorities said.</p><p>He was booked into the Sonoma County Jail around 6 p.m. with bail of $32,500, but was released again around midnight after posting bond, jail personnel said.</p><p>Shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday, an officer was patrolling the neighborhood when he came across a man with a flashlight walking on Jewell Avenue, police said.</p><p>There have been recent reports about prowling in the neighborhood as well as a residential break-in on nearby Calder Avenue two weeks earlier in which residents were awakened by a stocking-footed intruder, police Sgt. Mike Nielsen said.</p><p>“So anyone at 2:12 in the morning walking down the street with a flashlight, obviously he's going to be stopped by police,” he said.</p><p>Binion told the officer he was trying to recover something he had lost but was arrested when he determined to be under the influence of suspected narcotics and was again hauled off to jail, authorities said.</p><p>Binion was still at the Sonoma County Jail waiting to be booked at the start of business Thursday, jail personnel said.</p>