TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — In the early-morning hours of Oct. 5, as this college town was celebrating another big football victory by Florida State University, a starting cornerback on the team drove his car into the path of an oncoming vehicle driven by a teenager returning home from a job at an Olive Garden.

Both cars were totaled. But rather than remain at the scene as the law requires, the football player, P.J. Williams, left his wrecked vehicle in the street and fled into the darkness along with his two passengers, including Ronald Darby, the team’s other starting cornerback.

The Tallahassee police responded to the off-campus accident, eventually reaching out to the FSU police and the university’s athletic department.

By the next day, it was as if the hit-and-run had never happened.

A New York Times examination found that Williams, driving with a suspended license, was given a break by the Tallahassee police, who initially labeled the accident a hit-and-run — a criminal act — but later decided to issue him only two traffic tickets. Afterward, the case did not show up in the city’s public online database of police calls — a technical glitch, police said.

Williams eventually returned to the scene. But Tallahassee officers did not test him for alcohol. Nor did their report indicate whether they asked if he had been drinking or why he had fled, logical questions since the accident occurred at 2:37 a.m. The report also minimized the impact of the crash on the driver of the other car, Ian Keith, by failing to indicate that his air bag deployed — an important detail because Keith said in an interview that the air bag had cut and bruised his hands.

The university police, who lacked jurisdiction, nevertheless sent two ranking officers — including the shift commander — to the scene. Yet they wrote no report about their actions that night. Florida State dismissed the role of its officers in the incident as too minor to require a report or enter into their own online police log, comparing it to an instance when campus officers responded to a baby possum falling from a tree.

The car accident, previously unreported by the news media, comes amid heightened national scrutiny of preferential treatment given to athletes, including articles by The Times examining how the authorities have sometimes gone easy on Florida State football players accused of wrongdoing.

Elijah Stiers, a Miami lawyer who helped write a state law enacted this year that toughened penalties for hit-and-run drivers, said the basic facts of the Oct. 5 crash warranted criminal charges and a sobriety test.

“Two-thirty in the morning, people fleeing on foot — at the very least you’ve got to charge them with hit-and-run,” he said, adding, “You don’t get out of it just because you come back to the scene.”

Florida State declined to make anyone available for an interview. In a series of written responses to questions, the university gave shifting answers, at one point saying, incorrectly, that Williams drove his car home and that the Tallahassee police were required to call campus police under a “mutual aid agreement.” A Tallahassee police spokesman said there was no policy requiring its officers to contact the university when its students commit traffic violations.

Neither Williams, named the most valuable defensive player in this year’s national championship game, nor Darby responded to a request for comment.

In their report of the crash, the Tallahassee officers justified not charging Williams because he returned “approximately” 20 minutes later without being contacted by the police. That stands in sharp contrast to how the police treated another driver who left the scene and drove home after a minor, low-speed accident in the same area late last month. That driver and his mother contacted the police about half an hour later to report the accident.

At 5 mph, the collision inflicted far less damage than that caused by Williams’s car — and no injuries. Even so, the police charged the driver, who was not a Florida State football player, with hit-and-run.

The Oct. 5 crash occurred shortly after 2:30 a.m., as Keith, 18, was driving home from his restaurant job on West Tharpe Street. A Buick Century heading the other way darted in front of him, attempting a left turn onto High Road. Keith hit the brakes, but it was too late: His Honda CRV collided with the Buick, spinning it around. The Honda lurched to a halt a short distance down Tharpe, its front end crumpled, debris scattered around and engine fluid leaking onto the street.

Shaken up, Keith got out and waited for the Tallahassee police, who arrived within minutes. An officer approached him with an unexpected question: Where were the occupants of the other car?

“That’s when I first realized they were gone,” Keith said.

More officers arrived and tow trucks were called to retrieve the two disabled cars. An officer at the scene, Derek Hawthorne, filled out a form for the abandoned Buick, labeling the incident a “hit and run,” and asked that the car be held for processing as evidence.

About half an hour after the accident, the investigation took an odd turn. Another officer at the scene, Joseph Smith, discovered that the glass front door of a closed Exxon station at the corner of Tharpe and High was shattered, apparently from a break-in, according to his report. The gas station manager was called, and she replayed security camera video for the police showing a man breaking in and walking out with an armload of merchandise.

The video, obtained by The Times, also captured a poor-quality image of the accident. In it, the Buick containing the Florida State football players could be seen attempting the left turn onto High Road, in the direction of the Exxon station, just as the burglar was about to leave and walk toward High Road.

In the crash report, Hawthorne indicated there was no suspected alcohol or drug use, and he issued Williams traffic tickets for an improper left turn and for “unknowingly” driving with a suspended license. On the form for the impounded Buick, the officer used a pen to cross out earlier notations indicating the car would be held as evidence, writing: “No hold, no processing.”

At about 3:30 a.m., Williams, 21, called Mario Edwards Sr., director of player development for the football team, for a ride home, according to the university. The crash report said that both cars were disabled with damages that exceeded their estimated value. Keith got a lift home with a tow truck.

As for Williams, court records showed that two days after the accident, he paid $296 in overdue fines, related to an earlier speeding ticket, in order to get his license reinstated. But the $392 in fines related to the Oct. 5 crash remained unpaid, and overdue, as of this week. As a result, his license was suspended again.