Police Searching for Driver Who Jumped Wrecked Rented Tesla in Viral Video
If you were anywhere near social media over the weekend, you probably came across a viral video of a Tesla Model S soaring through the air in spectacular fashion before crashing into the ground along a residential street in Los Angeles. Well, the cops saw the video as well, and now they’re looking for the driver.
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The rented 2018 Model S was jumped at 12:10 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of Baxter Street and Alvarado Street in Echo Park, police said. After its launch, the Tesla hit two parked cars and some trash cans. The stunt was performed in front of a crowd that gathered following a Tesla meet that occurred earlier in the evening, according to YouTuber Alex Choi, who posted a video recapping the jump. The YouTuber claimed no one was injured in the stunt.
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A video published by the Los Angeles Police Department Central Traffic division on Sunday also shows several angles of the jump and subsequent impact taken by other bystanders who were at the scene at the time of the incident.
LAPD said on Twitter late Sunday night it was swamped with tips, asking the public to no longer send more. The agency also tweeted it has narrowed its search down to a person of interest, identified as @dominykas on TikTok. The account published a video on Sunday with an angle of the crash overlaid with the words “i just crashed my new Tesla.”
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LAPD Detective Calvin DeHesa told Road & Track the agency has yet to confirm the identity of the driver or the renter, despite online speculation. DeHesa did confirm, however, that the LAPD is currently working with both Tesla and Enterprise, the owner of the car.
“Nobody, from we could tell, has been injured,” DeHesa said. “There were several witnesses, as you can see in the video. Anybody that can come forward and actually put the driver behind the wheel, that was there, that saw it, that knows the guy; there’s a $1000 reward.”
Jordon Hook, a musician who owns one of the parked cars struck by the Tesla, published a video on YouTube recounting the events of the night and detailing the damage to his Subaru Forester.
“They came down here and hit my car pretty bad,” Hook said in the video. “They jacked up my front tires, my steering column’s all messed up, my suspension’s all blown, so the car’s done.”
“Two of my neighbors saw them carry a cat out of the crashed car,” Hook told Road & Track.” One of them saw like kitty litter and stuff in the back of the car. They weren’t really being hasty about their getaway. They all jumped in other cars that came over with them from the meetup.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a person with a social media presence attempt to jump their Tesla at this exact cross-street. YouTuber David Dobrik did the same thing in his Tesla Model X back in 2020, though he wasn’t going nearly as quick.
“It’s this trend thing,” Hook said. “Everybody’s like ‘Oh I could be seen by Elon if I do a stunt or a trick on this street!’ It’s just gotten kind of stupid.
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