Sonoma police identify driver suspected in El Dorado Hotel crash

A car bumper left at the crime scene and a cop with a good memory helped Sonoma police identify a motorist believed to have driven up on the sidewalk and smashed into the El Dorado Hotel on the Sonoma Plaza early Thursday morning.

Police said the 2:14 a.m. incident occurred when a westbound car on East Spring Street veered onto First Street West near the plaza’s northwest corner.

It then jumped the curb, took out a concrete pylon, broke a hotel balcony post and then struck the building before leaving with significant front-end damage.

A clerk at the hotel who witnessed the incident reported that the car was a silver Kia 4-door sedan with paper license plates. Its bumper was left behind.

A police officer hearing the report at briefing that morning remembered having stopped a young man he knew in a new silver Kia a few weeks earlier, Sgt. Orlando Rodriguez said.

The officer went to the subject’s home and found the vehicle parked out front, with damage consistent with the hit-and-run incident, Rodriguez said.

Authorities interviewed the registered owner, Omar Nonato, 20, and determined he had been involved. But he was not arrested.

Police, instead, will forward the case, a misdemeanor, to the City Prosecutor’s Office requesting charges, Rodriguez said.