Santa Rosa man crashes truck into traffic signal, flees

A 46-year-old Santa Rosa man was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs after he slammed his truck into a traffic signal pole Wednesday morning in northwest Santa Rosa, police said.

Mark Hilla took off on foot after he crashed his Chevrolet Silverado pickup about 10 a.m. at Marlow Road and West Steele Lane, according to Sgt. Mike Lazzarini. He said witnesses saw the man run north to a shopping center off Piner Road.

Officers found him acting erratically in the shopping center parking lot, Lazzarini said. Hilla had been trying to pick up landscape boulders and break a window of a vacant video store, Lazzarini said. Hilla eventually used his body to bust the glass, he explained.

“He literally jumped through the window and shattered it with his body,” Lazzarini said.

He added that Hilla would be booked in jail after having his cuts treated at a local hospital. He faces charges of driving under the influence of drugs and resisting arrest.

Anthony Zamora, a student adviser at Hilliard Comstock Middle school, was heading home sick when he came across the wreck not long after it happened. He snapped a picture of the pickup, which had its front wrapped around the pole. Zamora said he was worried because his school and Monroe Elementary are near that intersection. “He had just come out of a school zone (area),” he said.