Witnesses dispute accident account

Three students said the police missed the driver in Saturday's incident. Police may have arrested the wrong man Saturday night after a drunk driver allegedly struck a student who was crossing Walnut Street, several witnesses said. Accounts from three student eyewitnesses and a Spectaguard officer who also saw the incident contradict information provided by University Police. Police arrested William Ames on charges of driving under the influence and aggravated assault of a University Police officer. Ames' blood-alcohol level at the time was .142 percent, sharply higher than the legal driving limit of .1 percent. But several witnesses told The Daily Pennsylvanian yesterday that Ames wasn't driving the car. As far as the police know, Ames was the only person in the car at the time of the accident, Detective Commander Tom King said in response to those accounts. He stressed that the "primary charge" against Ames is for assaulting the officer, adding that a trial will determine whether Ames actually drove the car. "Whether he was driving or not, it doesn't give him a right to assault the officer," King said. Although King said witnesses at the scene identified Ames as the driver, one student insisted that Ames told police at least twice that he was only a passenger in the car. According to three teenage witnesses -- two of whom are Penn freshmen -- the driver stopped the car approximately 100 yards from where he had hit the student, and headed west on Walnut Street after jumping out of the car. A Spectaguard who was in the area at the time said a man was driving the car with a woman in the passenger seat, Spectaguard Vice President Gesi McAllister said. The teenage witnesses said they didn't know the gender of the person who jumped out of the car. The three teenage witnesses, all of whom requested anonymity, said they were walking east on Walnut Street shortly before midnight when they saw a Ford Mustang hit a male student in the cross-walk. When the car kept going, two of the witnesses -- a high school student who said he was "buzzed" but not drunk at the time, and his brother, a College freshman who acknowledged drinking "a while" earlier -- chased after the car until it stopped. The student's roommate, a Penn freshman who said he had not been drinking at all, called the police. But he said that while on the telephone, he saw a person get out of the driver-side door of the Mustang and flee the scene. "This guy [who was arrested] was definitely not the driver," he said. The other freshman also said he observed someone get out of the driver's door and walk west on Walnut Street. After the car stopped, the high school student said he approached the right-side door of the Mustang and urged the man sitting in the passenger seat to return to the scene of the crime, which he agreed to do. When the man walked back to 40th and Walnut streets, police began asking him questions, and the man voluntarily drove back to the Mustang with the officers, the students said. At some point during the questioning, a University Police officer pulled out his handcuffs and tried to arrest Ames, the students said. But Ames resisted and in the process pushed the officer, giving him a minor wrist injury. The officer then subdued Ames with Mace and arrested him.