Drugged-Up Dude Rams Into Ron Thomas' Parked SUV

By Marisa Gerber Thu., Oct. 13 2011 at 2:21 PM

Categories: Crime-iny, Kelly Thomas Killing

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No one seems to think it was sinister, but certainly "very, very strange."

Yesterday afternoon, Ron Thomas stopped by a coffee shop in downtown Fullerton--only a five-minute or so walk from the Fullerton Transportation Center where cops beat his son, Kelly, to death in July. Thomas and several others showed up for a town-hall style event hosted by Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva.

As they sat inside Steamers Café, they heard a loud crashing noise, Thomas says. "Then, I recognized the alarm on my [Chevy] Tahoe. And I thought, 'Oh, there's no way.'"

Sure enough, a man had rammed his vehicle into Thomas' SUV and two other vehicles. "It's very, very strange. Just the odds of things," Thomas says.

Fullerton police showed up on the scene and arrested Robert Ghanadian for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, says Sgt. Andrew Goodrich, a spokesman for the Fullerton Police Department.

"He hit the other car first, then plowed into me. It knocked the Tahoe up onto the curb and into a tree," Thomas told the Weekly today as he rode in a tow truck to take his SUV to the shop.

Thomas says the police department sent a lot of officers to the scene, including a captain. "When the initial officer showed up, he probably thought, 'Oh, shit,'" Thomas says, in reference to Thomas' car being involved in the crash.

He says he doesn't suspect anything sinister on the department's behalf, but added that Ghanadian was wearing a Fullerton Police Department sticker on his shirt.

Goodrich confirmed that Ghanadian had been at the police station sometime yesterday to speak with a traffic officer, but he wouldn't say whether Ghanadian had just left the station before crashing into the cars. "He was one of the many people in the station yesterday," Goodrich says.

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