This story has been updated with additional information from the Pensacola Police Department. A spokesperson says Mike Kohler is being charged with leaving a vehicle unattended.
Escambia County Commissioner Mike Kohler hit an electrical pole on April 13 while canvassing for reelection in the Sanders Beach neighborhood. The incident was under investigation by the Pensacola Police Department as a possible hit and run, after a witness said Kohler left the scene of the accident that caused damage to a nearby house.
Pensacola Police Department Public Information Officer Mike Wood now says Kohler is being charged with “leaving a vehicle unattended,” specifically for leaving the keys in the car and it running.
“He was not in the truck when it struck the pole,” Wood said in a follow up interview later on April 16. “He did not try to flee or evade. When he hit the pole, he was campaigning. He got out of the truck, left it in drive. I think he was throwing a sign in the yard or something, and the truck rolled down the road, hit the pole.”
The owner of the home at 900 S. K Street and a tenant there reported to police that a man driving a red truck, who they did not initially know was Kohler, hit a light pole next to the home, creating an electrical fire and power surge that ultimately caused about several thousand dollars in damage to the property.
“He hit the pole, the pole snapped, started sparking and set fire to the top of the roof,” the homeowner said. “The fire department comes, puts out the fire. We couldn’t make out who hit the pole, but we knew it was somebody that was campaigning.”
The homeowner, who declined to give her name for privacy reasons, utilizes the property as a rental and said the tenant’s dog walker was home at the time of the incident.
The dog walker told the tenant and property owner that a man in a red shirt driving a red truck hit the pole and that he told him to “call someone and don’t touch anything.”
He said he went back inside the home to grab his phone and, “then (Kohler) disappeared.”
Wood said Kohler left because he thought it only damaged his truck.
The dog walker took pictures of Kohler’s truck before he left, which showed a dent in the front bumper.
The homeowner said the incident caused about $3,000 in damage to the property, including fire damage to the roof’s weather head and electrical shorting throughout the house that required inspections of the roof and air conditioning.
She also said a water main was broken by workers who came to make electrical repairs and restore power, which led to a gushing water line in the yard that had to be fixed.
The tenant, a hair stylist, lost a day of work dealing with the issues caused by the incident and was forced to stay in a hotel due to the lack of power and water.
Tracking down Mike Kohler
The homeowner said she had to do some “sleuthing” to discover the identity of the driver who hit the power pole because he left without providing a name or any contact information.
“We’ve had to like track him down when we finally figured out it was him,” she said.
A neighbor provided Ring camera video of the commissioner walking up to their house and leaving campaign flyers around 10 a.m. on April 13, the same day and around the same time as the power pole accident.
The homeowner recognized Kohler’s truck in the video as the same truck involved in the incident that damaged her property and ultimately called his county commissioner’s office.
“I call his office and I speak to his assistant, and I said, ‘I need to speak to him about an incident that happened with a fire. There’s damage to my property. Have him call me when he’s out of his meeting.’ And his assistant says, ‘Oh, I know about that. You mean where he hit the pole?’”
The tenant filed a report with the Pensacola Police Department.
“First (the investigating officer) said, there was not a lot he could do because we didn’t know who it was,” she said. “But now we have evidence and we have footage from the neighbor’s Ring camera that showed him handing out flyers in the area at the time, so we called (the officer) back. He said, ‘This is a hit and run, because he left the scene and didn’t leave his information or anything. He should have filed a police report, and he didn’t.’”
Pensacola Police Department spokesman Mike Wood initially said neither he nor the police chief were available for comment since the incident is still under investigation.
“Our investigator can’t confirm whether or not we have a hit and run or not,” Wood said. “He is still working on what exactly occurred.”
However, he provided more details later including that Kohler would be charged with leaving a vehicle unattended, a moving violation with minor penalties.
Kohler’s response to leaving accident scene
A call requesting comment from Kohler about the issue was not immediately returned.
However, the homeowner said Kohler eventually returned her call days after the incident and left a message admitting he hit the pole but added that he didn’t know there had been a fire.
She shared the message with the News Journal, which is included verbatim.
“This is Commissioner Mike Kohler. How are you?” Kohler said. “I got, I’m calling you, I hit a pole I guess to next to a property that you, I guess, rent. I was there yesterday with the fire department and asked if I’d leave. I didn’t, I didn’t see a fire. I don’t know what I have a fire chief doing it, but here’s the deal. I called, I talked to officer at the city of Pensacola Police. He’s going to call you and I’m, I’m already putting in a claim with Progressive. I’m just waiting to get back to the fire chief report on what happened with the, I didn’t see a fire. I drove by it today. I don’t know what all that means but anyways I’ll file something later today and give that to the officer at the Pensacola Police department. OK. feel free to call me back if you have any questions…all right, sorry about this. bye.”
Wood said Kohler returned to the scene when he saw firefighters at the house and introduced himself to the emergency responders.
“He goes, ‘If I need to do anything else, I’ll hang around,'” Wood said. “And they told him, ‘No, we’re good. You can go.’ So that’s what he did and he’s been extremely cooperative with us and is going to take care of the house, the pole, and everything else.”
Wood said all vehicle crashes, no matter the damage, should be reported to police but a written report is “not always needed or requested by the parties involved.”
He said if the amount of damage caused in a vehicle crash is at least $500, or if the vehicle involved must be towed away, a written report is required.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Commissioner charged with leaving vehicle unattended after crash caused fire
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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