Local News

Driver doing "donuts" in Colorado school parking lot hits building

By Logan Smith

January 14, 2024 / 12:10 PM MST / CBS Colorado

A driver deliberating spinning his vehicle in circles in a snowy school parking lot Friday night lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the school.

The SUV veered off the Steamboat Springs High School parking lot surface and into a set of double doors.

The Steamboat Police Department is asking for the public's help in locating the blue Nissan Armada which was driven away after the collision - though barely, according to Steamboat School District Superintendent Celine Wicks.

"I wouldn't call it 'drive-able,' but it drove away," Wicks told CBS News Colorado.

A blue SUV, believed to be a Nissan Armada, is seen in a still image taken from surveillance video Friday night prior to the vehicle veering off the parking lot and into a set of doors at Steamboat Springs High School. Steamboat Springs School District

The school's surveillance system first recorded the blue Nissan Armada doing "donuts" in the parking lot in near-blizzard conditions. Then, Wicks said, cameras showed the SUV striking the building.

Wicks said the weather conditions kept the surveillance cameras from getting a good look at the driver.

"The weather was horrendous" at the time, Wicks said. "It was in the middle of a whiteout."

The damaged doors at Steamboat Springs High School after an SUV doing "donuts" in the parking lot veered into the building Friday night. Steamboat Springs School District

Wicks said the school will open on Tuesday as scheduled (there is no school Monday due to the Martin Luther King Day holiday). The damaged doors are not a highly used entrance but more of an emergency exit, she said, and operations at the school should not be affected.

Inspectors will assess any potential structural damage to that section of the building the same day. No damage estimate has been provided.

Wicks added that none of the high school's students have a registered parking pass for a blue Nissan Armanda.

Workers make temporary repairs to an entrance at Steamboat Springs High School that was damaged the night before by a vehicle performing circles in the parking lot during a snowstorm. Shannon Lukens/Steamboat Radio

A police department spokesman said the driver is potentially a local person with knowledge of the parking lot and likely not someone who was driving through town and spontaneously chose the location for the maneuvers.

"We are following a couple leads, and hopefully we'll have action in the next couple of days," Steamboat PD Cpl. Braxton Shirley said Sunday. "We've had multiple people call in. It's a pretty distinct vehicle."

A vehicle that should now have fresh damage on its driver's side front corner.

Shirley said the driver may face traffic charges related to reckless driving and leaving the scene. But investigators also believe there were passengers in the Armada. Endangering those passengers could bring criminal charges against the driver, he said.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact Steamboat Springs PD at (970) 879-1144 or reach out to Safe2Tell at Safe2Tell.org or 877-542-SAFE.

Logan Smith

Logan Smith is an assignment desk editor at CBS Colorado in Denver with more than 30 years of journalism experience in digital, television and print media.