A luxury SUV wreaked havoc on a Gwinnett County neighborhood Monday afternoon when a driver smashed into more than two dozen cars, ripped through yards and did doughnuts in the street, authorities said.
Officers were called to the Berkeley Hills Estates neighborhood east of Norcross around 2:45 p.m. after getting reports of a Mercedes-Benz G500 SUV hitting cars parked in driveways, Gwinnett police said. Witnesses told police the SUV, commonly called a G-wagon, was tearing through yards and over driveways, doing doughnuts and hitting cars along the way. Some witnesses reported hearing gunshots, police said.
Thirty cars were damaged and reports were taken from 28 victims, police said. According to one report shared by police, a 58-year-old woman’s Ford Fiesta was likely totaled when it was hit by the notoriously heavy SUV.
Police said witnesses showed responding officers several videos of the incident. One that was posted to social media shows the white SUV driving from house to house, hitting cars parked in driveways. The license plate on the SUV in the video matches the one included in the police report. A loud pop can be heard at the end of the footage.
About two hours later, the G500 was found abandoned at a tire shop around 4 miles from the neighborhood, police said. Officers found the suspected driver, 37-year-old Patrick Humes of Athens, at a McDonald’s next to the shop where the SUV was left.
Humes was arrested and charged with 28 felony counts of criminal damage to property, police said. He was booked into the Gwinnett jail where he remains without bond.
“Humes may have been suffering a mental health crisis at the time, though the exact motive for damaging so many vehicles is not known,” police said in a statement.
No guns were found in the G500, and police said there was no evidence any gunshots had been fired during the spree.
The neighborhood is next to Berkely Hills Country Club, but there is no gate so traffic can freely enter and exit from Pond Road.
According to the incident report, the G500 is registered to another person who lives at the same Athens address as Humes.
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