Man's Car Sells Him Out to Cops: BMW's Automated Distress Call Ends in Hit-and-Run, Drug Accusations

By Bay City News Service:

A Mendocino County man was arrested on suspicion of hit-and-run and possession of marijuana for sale following a crash in Corte Madera last week, police said Tuesday.

Ronald Eric Bjarnason, 59, of Piercy, was arrested in Mill Valley last Thursday after his BMW crashed into a guardrail on Corte Madera Avenue in Corte Madera early that morning, Central Marin Police Authority officials said.

Responding officers found the car, but not the driver, after police received an automated distress call from the vehicle’s impact warning system around 12:20 a.m., police said.

Police said blood was found at the scene and one officer heard rustling in bushes that indicated the driver fled on foot. While searching the neighborhood near Chapman Drive in Corte Madera, a homeowner informed police his video surveillance system recorded someone fleeing through his property after the crash, police said.

Officers then found a large duffel bag with 13 pounds of processed marijuana bagged for transport along the route the suspect fled.

The driver, identified as Bjarnason, was found in Mill Valley and he was arrested on suspicion of hit-and-run, possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of marijuana, police said.

He later posted bail and was released from jail. Corte Madera police, the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force and the Central Marin Special Response Team found 2,000 marijuana plants, several pounds of cultivated marijuana, Ecstasy pills, evidence of psilocybin mushroom cultivation, weapons and cash in Bjarnason’s home in Piercy, police said.

Bjarnason remains out of custody pending the possible filing of charges in Marin County Superior Court.