Video captures motorist's odd behavior in a small plaza in Athens

When Athens-Clarke police officer Samuel Morgan arrived at the scene of extensive damage to property off Prince Avenue on June 2 he began his search for a suspect by following a trail of transmission fluid.

Morgan had already documented the destruction to a brick wall, and the landscaping plants in a plaza near My Salon and Farm Burger at the Pulaski Street intersection. Amid the rubble were pieces of a headlight, a bumper, and other shards of a vehicle.

The officer followed the blood-colored streak of fluid to a nearby house on Pulaski Street.

There he found a parked Toyota Highlander with a missing bumper and extensive frontend damage.

The resident, a 24-year-old man, responded to the door and said the headlight and bumper had been missing “for a while.”

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“He stated he did not know how the damage had occurred and also that he was positive he did not drive,” according to the report. Despite his pleas of innocence, the officer arrested the man on several charges including driving with a suspended license.

Before the trip to jail, the officer reported the man asked “if we had it on camera.”

The damage was indeed caught on camera.

The video shows the man driving to the location at about 1 a.m., driving down a staircase to an area not meant for cars. The vehicle repeatedly rams a brick wall, destroying it and the plants, before it manages to make its way back up the stairs.

The man drove off, probably unaware, his damaged transmission was leaving a trail for an observant police officer.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Video captures strange driving in Athens; police capture the suspect