Truck hit by police car, crashes into restaurant

At about 9 p.m. on Thursday night, as the owners of Mariela's Pizzeria and The Sparta Grill were closing up for the night, a Nissan truck veered off the street and smashed into the brick wall of The Sparta Grill, after a Sparta Police Officer clipped the back of the pickup truck.

Sparta Lt. John Lamon said that Officer Angela Lippacott was responding to a call when entering the intersection of Woodport Road, Main Street, and Sparta Road at the jug handle. The driver of the Nissan pickup truck, 19-year-old Tyler Lewis of Sparta, saw the officer and "tried to go around her," when she then clipped the back of his truck, sending the truck veering into the restaurant, Lamon said. The Nissan's fender was "smashed," Lamon said. Officer Lippacott drove her police vehicle back to Sparta Police Headquarters after the accident. Both drivers were checked at the scene, and declined further medical treatment, Lamon said.

According to the owners, the Nissan jumped the curb, plowing through the unoccupied seating area, with the truck missing both the telephone pole and the light pole, and crashing into the exterior brick wall. Ingrid Luna, owner of Mariela's Pizzeria, who shares the building with the Sparta Grill, said she felt everyone involved was lucky to be alive, calling it "a miracle."

Luna said she was finishing up the nightly closing duties, when she heard "a terrifying crash" at her restaurant entrance doors.

"I honestly thought the building was collapsing," she said. "The whole building shook hard like an earthquake."

Luna said that she and her husband initially crouched and covered their heads, not knowing what was happening. Luna's husband ran to the double glass doors to investigate, and found he couldn't get the doors open, because the structure had been compromised, jamming the doors closed. Hearing the owners in The Sparta Grill screaming on the other side of the doors, Luna said her husband kicked the doors open to find and help them.

"This is why this could be called a miracle," said Luna, explaining what her husband found. "The owner of the Sparta Grill, Luis, was actually standing at the glass doors, getting ready to lock them for the night. His wife and baby were there with him."

Luna said that "a truck smashed into the brick wall, right between the glass door where Luis was, and the windows where his wife and baby were standing. Nobody was hit, nobody was hurt."

She calls it "a miracle. If he had crashed into the doors, Luis would have been killed. If he had crashed through the windows, his wife and baby would've been killed."

The brick wall absorbed the shock of the crash, expelling the force to both the doors and large plate windows, blowing out all of the glass and bending the frames of the doors and the windows, the owners said.

"Walls all the way inside are damaged," Luna said. "We can't have customers in our dining room, but at least we are open. The Sparta Grill can't open at all. This is a shame, but nobody was hurt. So we must all thank God."

Lamon said that it is standard procedure to do an internal investigation if there's an accident during or after an officer responds to a call. He also stressed the importance that all motorists take extra precautions before and while entering intersections.

"It's important to use that extra precaution whenever entering an intersection because it does not matter if you are in the right, if you are hurt. We have several big intersections in town, and that's always important to stress: take extra precaution."