The moment when Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon, driving a county SUV, collided with a parked car at a Lone Tree gas station before driving off in 2019. (Screenshot from video provided by Lone Tree Police Department)
Gas station surveillance video obtained by the Lone Tree Police Department while officers investigated a hit-and-run crash in 2019 shows Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon backing into a parked car and then pulling away.
Laydon, who had been elected to his first term as commissioner the previous year, was driving a county vehicle at the time. Officers investigated the incident as a hit-and-run, and police issued tickets to Laydon after using a license plate number captured in the video to track him down and interview him.
Though Laydon chose not to speak with Newsline about the video, when contacted for comment, he said, “I believe my work on cutting property taxes, curbing homelessness, and improving public safety are far more important to the people of this county than a fender bender from four years ago, but accidents do happen, and yes once I was fully apprised of what happened I took full responsibility and addressed it completely.”