The 1000 block of Euclid Street NW looked more like a scene out of Transformers Friday afternoon, with broken glass and debris from several cars lining the street. According to residents in the area, around 2:00 a.m., an unidentified man who they believe to be intoxicated came speeding down the street colliding with about eight cars.

Nick Santucci, who was awakened by the crash, says it sounded like a building collapsed. “When I came outside there was a Jeep sitting on top of another Jeep with a woman sitting on top yelling ‘I’m okay,'" he says.

The women who was a passenger in the SUV that collided with the vehicles was questioned by police, but wasn't taken into custody.

There was some speculation online Friday afternoon that the whole thing was a publicity stunt of some sort. But Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Tisha Gant told WUSA the police were after a suspect:

"Early Friday morning a suspect travelling in a vehicle on the 1000 block of Euclid Street NW, collided with several parked vehicles and fled the scene on foot without making his identity known. Police are in the process of determining the identity of the suspect and would be issuing a warrant for his arrest soon."

Photos by Odochi Ibe

Snow Day: Federal workers have three alternatives for dealing with the ice storm expected to roll through the region tomorrow: Work from home; take unscheduled leave; or do neither, and spend 13 hours commuting home tomorrow night, just like last week's rush hour snowstorm. Chastened by the scolding the feds got from local governments around the region, the Office of Personnel Management decided to give employees the option ahead of time. Expect Pepco to take it upon itself to opt for "unscheduled leave," if last week's performance was any guide. -2

How to Get Rich Slow: The sea of blue suits and red ties on the Metro every morning means it's not exactly a radical statement that D.C. can be a fairly conservative town. Apparently that sentiment extends from the sartorial realm to the financial. A new report from Bank of America, the Merrill Lynch Affluent Insights Quarterly (so named because BofA gobbled up Merrill Lynch in the middle of the economic crisis two years ago), finds that 36 percent of local investors consider themselves "conservative" in their investment strategy—though that's actually lower than the national average of 47 percent. What that means, besides the fact that a lot of people around town have a lot of bonds, we aren't really sure; if we knew anything about investing or how to make money, would we be working as journalists? -1

Are You Smarter Than a Car Thief?: Another spate of cold weather, another spell of car thefts that could easily have been avoided by taking basic precautions. And by basic precautions, we mean, "Not leaving the car running, out of your sight, with the doors unlocked." For the second time this month, police send around a reminder that car thieves can take advantage of such a situation, in response to reports of stolen autos that were left unattended. Adding insult to injury: That's actually an offense they can ticket you for. -3

The Revolution Will Not Be Gamed: People of Washington! A great hero walks in our midst. Well, properly, he walks in the midst of the people of Herndon, but we're sure he makes his way into the District every now and then. 1o-year-old Ryota Wada has officially been named "Youngest Gamer to Achieve a Perfect Score on Dance Dance Revolution" in the Guinness Book of World Records 2011 Gamer's Edition. (In related news, the Guinness Book of World Records has really been on an expansion kick lately.) +2

Friday's Needle rating: 51 Today's score: -4 Today's Needle rating: 47

I unfortunately had the awful experience of being hit by a car on my commute home this evening. The details are as follows: Around 5:50 PM I was riding along First St. NW with other commuters. We crossed over Florida Ave and a car came in behind me, horn continuously on, and accelerated into my rear wheel knocking me to the ground. The driver then got out of the car and yelled some obscenity at me. He got back into his car and left the scene.

I ended up with a few bruises and bumps but luckily no serious injury, but my rear wheel was destroyed along with my saddle, still not sure about the frame. Although there were seven plus witnesses, we were only able to get a partial license plate. We did get a great description of the car. The police arrived on the scene and took all the witness statements, etc and the incident will be filed as a hit and run.

Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry's on-again, off-again boycott went off again yesterday afternoon, when the mayor-for-life called LL to take issue with his "silly" item on Barry's new wheels.

To recap: LL noted that Barry is now driving an aging Toyota Corolla; it bears tags registered to the BMW that Barry used to drive and which happen to have $465 of parking tickets associated with them.

"You don't have anything better to do except write about tags [with] all the great problems of this city?" he asked. "Why don't you find something else to do?...Small minds think small."

Barry has a point. LL, however, retorted with a version of one of Barry's own lines: Don't judge him on one teensy blog item, but by his larger body of work!

Barry assured LL that the Toyota's tags had been legitimately transferred from his BMW, now unrepairable with a busted engine block, to the temporary Toyota while his dealer locates a more suitable ride.

"I'm looking for a Jaguar, a Mercedes, or a BMW," says Barry, currently in hock to the federal and District government for back taxes.

As for the four tickets he owes, Barry says he found out about them last week and immediately challenged them. Three of them were too old to challenge, he says, but he's pressing on with the fourth.

"Write it straight now," he told LL.

LL, preeminent chronicler of Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry's transportation as he is, has a wheels-related update.

Barry, it seems, has returned the 1997 Mercedes E320 he'd been driving to its owner, the Rev. Anthony Motley. In its place, he has opted for more a spartan whip: He arrived at the John A. Wilson Building this morning is an early-'90s vintage Toyota Corolla.

And, as seems to be fashionable among councilmembers these says, Barry (or its previous driver) has racked up some hefty parking fines. A year ago tomorrow, the car was cited for failure to display current tags—a fine that now stands at $205. In May, the car was ticketed in a no-standing zone ($105); in September, it was a loading zone (also $105), and a week ago, it picked up a $50 ticket for lacking a current inspection sticker.

The plates on the Corolla, according to Lexis-Nexis, had previously graced Barry's 1999 BMW 540i—the car he was driving on July 4 when he was arrested in Anacostia Park for stalking Donna Watts-Brighhaupt.

Examiner's Michael Neibauer was first to report this morning that Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. got his car booted last week.

He had failed to pay four tickets incurred by his 2007 Audi Q7 SUV, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Audi was parked in a rush hour zone on Sept. 21; parked in a street-cleaning zone on Oct. 8; parked in a loading zone on Nov. 17; and parked in a bus stop on Dec. 15.

Thomas told Neibauer on Sunday that they were "not valid tickets," which comports with what he told LL on Friday afternoon. Actually, Thomas was somewhat more conciliatory: "I pay my tickets and pay my violations like any other citizen," he said. "I am law-abiding citizen. I follow the rules."

But Thomas was more interested in talking about how LL (and Neibauer) came to find out about his booting.

He pointed out how embarrassing stories have emerged about various foes of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, including Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray home-improvement troubles.

"I have been one of those adversaries," Thomas said. "'Conspiring against the councilmember' is what I'd say to you. That tells you what level it's gotten to...This is this administration trying to feed you stuff."

Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't; the photo above was e-mailed to LL from one "John Doe."

Moral of the story: Pay your parking tickets.

In an memo issued June 23, Attorney General Peter Nickles addressed two issues: the use of city-owned cars in Department of Motor Vehicles driver tests, and the use of city employees' own private cars while on government business.

Regarding the former, the memo [PDF] notes that as of Aug. 1, DMV "will no longer use government vehicles for its driver's tests." That, Nickles writes, is due to "weak indemnification language" in the waivers the test-takers have to sign—those require the driver to take responsibility for any damage to the cars, unless they are "not financially capable of doing so." Such a policy, Nickles writes, "makes it virtually impossible for the District to successfully obtain reimbursement" in the case of an accident.

This, of course, poses the question: How are unlicensed drivers supposed to find a car to take their test in? And, even if they can, how are they supposed to get the car to the test site?

LL posed those questions to the mayor's office yesterday; he has yet to receive any explanation.

As far as the latter issue goes, D.C. employees have long been allowed to use their personal cars on government business, then collect a mileage-based reimbursement for the use. The problem, Nickles wrote in last week's memo, is "a recent increase in claims against the District involving motor vehicle property damage by District employees." Add to that the new Zipcar-based fleet management system and "current budget constraints to pay damage claims," and you've got a no-brainer: Nickles says that "effective immediately supervisors should not approve the use of private vehicles by District employees, except in rare instances where doing so is absolutely necessary."

But that move raised the hackles of at least one employee union. Johnnie Walker, president of AFGE Local 383, says "a train wreck is going to happen."

In particular, he says, caseworkers for the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, the Department of Mental Health, the Department on Disability Services, among others, will find it harder to do their jobs.

"The District, historically, has never had enough government vehicles for employees to do the government's work," Walker says. "Workers have always used their personal vehicles."

And the alternatives aren't going to work, he says: "They're asking the employees to utilize Metro and bus service. If this was Manhattan, I would be all for it, but the Metro system does not get them to their necessary site visits." As for the Zipcar system, he notes that the availability of Zipcars around DDS headquarters, downtown on 15th Street NW, "is limited."

Nickles apparently heard some of those concerns: In a followup memo released today, he backed off a bit, saying that "reliance on employees' use of personal vehicles for official transportation may be necessary and justified under some circumstances."

In today's memo, Nickles says the city "will be re-evaluating the policies and procedures that currently apply to the use of personal vehicles for official business and may implement additional requirements with respect to that process." In the meantime, D.C. employees can keep using their own cars where other modes of transportation "are not reasonably available."

The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is advising motorists that the 2600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, NW is closed to eastbound traffic because of a sinkhole. A square hole, approximately 4 feet by 4 feet, and 5 feet deep, has developed in the roadway near the bridge over Rock Creek (see attached photo).

DDOT crews are on the scene to make repairs. They are also working with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to try and reopen a lane for eastbound traffic, but delays are likely and motorists are advised to take alternate routes if possible

Any readers got pics?

UPDATE, 5:35 P.M.: WUSA-TV has a photo.

Woman In Cadillac, 1996

Drag Race, 1994

Rats hanging out in cars and eating essential parts is a common enough problem in the District of Columbia. As City Desk previously chronicled, it happens in Adams Morgan. It happens at 15th and U. Kathryn Kailian, an esthetician who lives in Dupont Circle, had to take her car in six times for service because of rat damage. At one point, she submitted a claim for the $1,200 her dealership charged to completely re-wire her vehicle. "Our insurance company dropped us," she says.

Fed up, Kailian Googled for solutions and found coyote pee. She ordered a bottle of it on the Internet, sprayed it on her engine, and hasn't had a problem since. One bottle will last her "for years" since she only spritzes every few months. The smell dissipates pretty quickly and the rats have left her alone, despite the fact that she parks in an alley with Dumpsters filled by Five Guys, Chipotle, Cosi, and other delicious-to-rats restaurants.

But how does a seller of coyote piss collect coyote piss?

For the answer, I turn to the self-described "peeman," Ken Johnson, who has been in the urine business for more than 20 years. Johnson, 57, has a wife, three daughters, and a nice house in Maine, all supported by the sale of animal waste.

He asserts the products at predatorpee.com—whether from wolf, bobcat, fox, or mountain lion—are the real stuff, not synthetic, and not dressed-up dog pee (although dog pee is for sale, too, to help Rags figure out where he should go). How it works is only slightly mysterious.

Johnson has contracts with zoos and wildlife preserves "all over the country" whose employees collect animals' pee, mostly in drains inside the exhibits. The mysterious part is where these places are. Johnson doesn't like to get specific. "We've run into problems with PETA people," he says.

His site cautions that all of the suppliers are regulated by state and local agencies and that the animals are treated humanely. He says in a phone interview that no one is pumping them with water or Budweiser to make them go.

Basically, it's a moneymaker for nonprofits, a moneymaker for Johnson, and a solution for people, like Kailian, who've had it. In Florida, coyote pee wards off iguanas. In Japan, wolf pee keeps wild boar out of rice paddies. And for anywhere there are "unwanted people or animals," Johnson's newest product is Skunk 'Em, a proven agent to stop loiterers, he says. What works for what pest depends on the food chain. For example, somewhere inside an urban rat's brain is a primal fear of a coyote, even though that coyote probably never roamed anywhere near where the rat has ever lived.

As for making his living from piss, the Peeman's got a healthy sense of humor about it (his daughters, however—ranging in age from 15 to 32—are pretty much mortified). After fielding the question about how he gets the pee more times than he can recall, he created a spot on his site that details "How I Became a Urine Collector" by "P. Catcher." It runs alongside a testimonial written from the coyote's perspective.

Trained as a marketer, Johnson acquired the company in 1986 from a former client. Back then, the products were bought primarily by hunters to attract deer. But Johnson started noticing that people in nonrural areas were buying his products—suburban gardeners were an early indication of wider applications.

Then there was the spike Predatorpee got when Dave Barry included bobcat pee in his annual gift guide, which runs in the Washington Post Magazine. "People wanted to buy it for their lawyers, for their ex-wives," says Johnson.

And then, Al Gore invented the Internet and Predatorpee began flowing like never before.

These days, the urine is sold exclusively online and comes in several forms. A spray bottle of coyote piss runs $25.99, plus S&H.

Johnson has an office/warehouse on his 40 acres outside of Bangor, a good distance form the house. He's become desensitized, to some degree, to the smell. "Probably more so than my wife," he says. "She knows when I've been working with Skunk 'Em."

We—OK, well really my husband. It's his car. I take the bus—took the car to the dealership in Northern Virginia which quoted us a price: $2,000. The door, they said, would have to be replaced. Seemed not quite right, so we said no thanks and continued to drive around with a dented door and window that would not go down. When, on occasion, I needed to spit out my gum, I would instruct my husband to roll down his window and then we would see if I had good aim. These are fun times in the car.

Then Jerry came into our lives. Jerry pulled up just as we were about to leave and told us he could fix our door, right there, in about 30 minutes, for $275. We were skeptical, but Jerry told us we could leave the car locked, we could stand right there and watch him work, and we didn't have to pay him until he was done. In cash, natch.

Jerry also told us—after we said yes—that he's been working on cars since he was 10. He also said that he's been working with Jim, the owner of Jim's Mobile Auto Body, for two years and Jim let him have the tools over the holiday to make a little extra scratch. Jerry wanted to take his wife somewhere nice for their 11th wedding anniversary.

Jerry started pounding on our door, right there on Biltmore Street NW, and put some sort of suction-thing on it. And dang if it didn't work. The window went down. The door was no longer dented. He sanded it, slapped on some navy primer and told us how to get the exact color of paint we'd need. Then he gave us his card and told us he'd come back to paint it. Right there on Biltmore again, or wherever else we find a spot in the Adams Morgan parking wars.

So screw you, Dealership. Oh, and if you want to find your own Jerry, sit in your car and see if he comes along. Or try Craigslist. I'm fairly certain this is him.