Thanks to social media, police identify suspected 'party crashers'

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- (WDAF) -- Kansas City police are thanking the public Tuesday for helping them identify two women they believe caused thousands of dollars worth of damage at a local Mexican Restaurant.

According to police, the driver of a car trying to escape a locked gate at Ponak's did up to $200,000 in damages to the popular Mexican restaurant on the Boulevard.

The crash happened July 1st, but Monday Kansas City Police released photos of the suspected "party" crashers.

When the two women returned to their car parked at Ponak's, they found a locked gate. So they hatched an escape plan that may have involved trying to gun it over the railroad tracks behind the restaurant. Instead they ended up backing into the Mexican restaurant's kitchen.

After hearing what happened customers scoured through hundreds of online photos from an event that was going on nearby that night to see if they could find a match to surveillance photos police released last week of the women in the Ponak's parking lot.

They sent police a picture of two women who seemed to match the women on surveillance.