Former state representative says bullet hit truck

Published 1:30 am Saturday, August 8, 2026

PORT ANGELES — A former state representative said his pickup was struck by gunfire while he was stopping by state Department of Natural Resources timber sale sites in Port Angeles.

Jim Buck, who represented the 24th Legislative District from 1995-2007, visited the Bakers Dozen timber sale on Monroe Road and the Power Plant timber sale on Colville Road on July 10.

Buck said he and his wife, Donna, were looking over the sites as part of his research into DNR’s management of state transfer forest lands — land that is held in trust for the sole benefit of counties and their junior taxing districts, such as schools, hospitals and fire districts.

A bullet struck his pickup as they were leaving one of the sites, he said, smashing the passenger-side window of the truck’s canopy and breaking the driver-side canopy window as it exited — missing Donna by about 6 feet.

Neither of them heard a shot, but they recalled a crunching sound they later realized was likely the safety glass breaking.

Buck reported the damage to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office that day.

According to the case report, he told a deputy he didn’t discover the broken windows until that afternoon when he was loading his dogs into the truck at his home in Joyce.

The deputy searched an area on Colville Road where Buck believed the shooting may have occurred but found no broken glass that matched the truck’s canopy.

According to the report, the hole in the glass was about 3½ inches across and glass had fallen in roughly equal amounts inside both sides of the truck bed. No rock or other object was found in the bed.

Buck said last week he didn’t know who shot at his vehicle or whether it was linked to his criticism of the state Legislature and the DNR for what he has said has been their failure to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to Clallam County to manage its trust lands.

The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office has classified the case as open but inactive — unsolved, but not being actively pursued unless new information surfaces.

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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.