Seattle, Apr 20: A 22-year-old arrested for intentionally hitting two people with his car in Bothell said he did it to change his life and to get out of a job he hated, court documents say.
“I had to change something in my life, so I hit three people with my car,” the man told a Bothell police officer. “The intent wasn’t to kill but just to injure.”
Court documents say he hit two women and aimed his car at a third pedestrian, who managed to get out of the way.
One of the women was seriously hurt and was taken to Evergeen Health Medical Center. The other woman was treated at the scene.
“I heard kind of a screech. Like tire screeching,” said victim Amy Porterfield of Bothell. She was walking to a restaurant to meet her husband for their anniversary dinner.
“I started to cross the street and then I heard the car coming. I could hear the engine revving as he came. And I turned just as his hood hit my leg,” said Porterfield. “He hit me in my left leg and I came up on the car, bounced off the hood, flipped over and landed on my right side on the street.”
The man who was arrested, identified as Eli Aldinger, later told a police officer that he was on his way to work when he saw a man and woman crossing Main Street. He sped up from 20 to 35 to 40 mph to hit the woman, court documents say. He told a police officer that the woman saw him coming and jumped up on the hood of his car.
She was the most seriously injured of the two women.
The man then saw a second woman crossing Bothell Way Northeast. He swerved his car to hit her, court documents say.
The woman was bruised, but didn’t need to go to the hospital, court documents say.
Then a man was in the path of his car, but he got out of the way.
Witnesses say the suspect was driving on the wrong side of the road but finally stopped at Bothell Way NE and 185th NE Street. Officers were in the area dealing with an unrelated accident. Snapchat video shows the officer cuffing the suspect and witnesses say the suspect was laughing.
The driver did not seem to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, court documents say. “He was completely calm and did not seem confused, excited, nervous or scared,” a Bothell police officer wrote in court documents. The officer said after his arrest, the man “spoke nonchalantly about the incident.”
He worked at McMenamins Anderson School in Bothell, but he hated his job, he told the officer. He said he was unhappy with his life and suffered from insomnia. He said on Friday that he had not slept for three days.
As he was driving to work that night, “he wanted to do anything to get out of going to work,” the officer wrote. He seemed almost relieved that he was going to jail, the officer wrote. He told the officer he was looking forward to “spending a few years in a room.”
-Komonews