By MICHAEL BUSHNELL
Northeast News
January 10, 2013

The Kansas City Missouri Police Department is continuing its investigation of a late night, hit and run crash last Saturday that severely damaged the Sen. Thomas Hart Benton monument at St. John and Benton Boulevard.

According to police sources, the driver of a blue 1996 Chevrolet pick-up truck was traveling westbound on St. John at a high rate of speed when the driver failed to negotiate the traffic circle. The vehicle careened through the traffic circle, taking out roughly four sections of solid iron fence and a few shrubs before coming to rest on a traffic island on the west side of the circle. The driver exited the vehicle and fled the scene on foot, allegedly changing clothes in the process as he or she fled east on St. John.

The vehicle was towed to the city’s impound lot on Front Street following the crash and Parks Department crews cleared the debris from the circle on Monday morning.

The accident occurred less than 30 days after the city’s Parks Department repaired the fence from a crash that destroyed two sections of fence last spring. The Parks Department is working with representatives of the Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood Association and the police department’s Traffic Unit on the continuing investigation.