Coast Guard joins search for car thief who dumped car off cliff

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU and wires) -- The U.S. Coast Guard has joined the investigation into how a car stolen out of Berkeley ended up rocks below a steep cliff on San Francisco's Yerba Buena Island.

Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer 1st Class Bill Colclough said the Coast Guard Investigative Service was joining the San Francisco police and sheriff's departments in attempting to find the person who dumped the car off the cliff.

Colclough said fortunately nobody was injured during the incident and no pollution has been detected.

San Francisco fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said a citizen reported the car, described as a white Mini Cooper with a black roof, at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday near the lighthouse on the southeast tip of the island.

Crews located the car on the rocks below a cliff and determined that the vehicle was unoccupied.

Talmadge said a car thief might have been responsible for abandoning the vehicle on Yerba Buena Island, which connects the eastern and western spans of the Bay Bridge and also includes a U.S. Coast Guard station.