A 53-year-old man became Woodland’s third hit-and-run fatality in just over a month when he was struck by a vehicle early Monday morning.
Douglas William Gatie of Woodland died at the scene of the collision, which occurred at about 1:15 a.m. at Main and Walnut streets, Woodland police Sgt. Steve Guthrie said. Emergency personnel arrived to find Gatie lying on the sidewalk in front of Chase Bank, not far from the shuttered State Theatre.
Also at the scene: a license plate from the suspect vehicle, whose driver had fled by the time police had arrived. Guthrie said the plate led officers about an hour later to a home on First Street north of Laurel Street, where a man sat in a vehicle that was parked at the curb.
“After refusing to comply with the officers’ commands, the suspect was forcibly removed from the vehicle and detained without further incident,” Guthrie said in a news release. The man, identified as 19-year-old Ivan Martinez of Woodland, was taken into custody.
Martinez — who according to police also goes by the name Ivan Martinez-Jimenez — is believed to have been under the influence of alcohol at the time of the collision, Guthrie said. He was lodged at the Yolo County Jail on charges including gross vehicular manslaughter, fleeing the scene of a collision after committing vehicular manslaughter, driving while under the influence causing bodily injury, and driving without a license.
The teen remained in custody Monday night in lieu of $250,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Yolo Superior Court.
Woodland police, meanwhile, are asking anyone with information about this case to call the agency at 530-666-2411.
A man who identified himself as Gatie’s son declined to comment when reached by phone Monday afternoon. “It’s too fresh,” he said of his father’s passing.
Gatie’s death marks the Woodland area’s third hit-and-run fatality since June 30, when 58-year-old Alisa Valerie Horner was struck by a vehicle in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven store on East Main Street. The Woodland woman died two days later from her injuries.
The alleged driver, Woodland resident Kristal Ellen Sutton, 28, is due back in court Aug. 27 for a preliminary hearing in the case. She has pleaded not guilty to a felony hit-and-run charge.
Five days after that incident, Woodland resident Claudia Marie Gonzalez, 17, was struck and killed after running into the traffic lanes of northbound Interstate 5, where she had exited another vehicle whose driver had pulled over. The motorist who hit Gonzalez then fled the scene.
Within days, California Highway Patrol investigators found the vehicle involved and identified the driver as 26-year-old Camron Matthew Ervin of Sacramento, who reportedly told officers he had been on his way to work at a Woodland warehouse when the collision occurred and “didn’t know what he hit,” CHP Officer Bryan Konvalin said last month.
Ervin’s damaged car was later seized from a Sacramento auto dismantling yard, where it had been scheduled for destruction. Ervin has not been arrested, and the investigation is continuing, CHP Officer Cindy Leal said Monday.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene