EDITOR’s NOTE: Staff writer Luke Bogues was participating in a ride-along in a Washington State Patrol cruiser on New Year’s Eve when a crash killing three people occurred southeast of Sequim. Here is his account.
“They’re drinkin’,” State Patrol Trooper Ken Ahrens remarked as he sat down to the table.
Ahrens, along with Trooper Galin Hester and two firefighters, were enjoying a New Year’s Eve cup of coffee around 8:15 p.m. at Traylor’s Restaurant in Port Angeles.
Hester already had two hours into his shift, which was scheduled to span 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Jan. 1.
So far, he hadn’t pulled over any drunken drivers.
But the troopers were prepared for New Year’s Eve.
People were out celebrating with alcohol, and some of them would be on the road, Ahrens said.
Earlier, Ahrens had responded to his first intoxicated driver of the night: a woman who had overdosed on medication and wrecked her car.
Drugs are fast becoming a bigger problem on the roads, Ahrens explained, but noting alcohol is still the predominant problem.
In the patrol’s Port Angeles Detachment, Ahrens holds something of a record: 30 drunken-driving busts in one year.
Last year was highly unusual, he said. In December, more than 40 intoxicated drivers were stopped in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
In his 17 years on the force, Ahrens said he recalls only 10 to 15 for this time of year.
The troopers hoped to take a good number of drunken drivers off the streets.
Yet if the night turned up no major arrests, that could mean people who drink are heeding warnings and staying off the streets, Hester pointed out.
“That’s good,” he said.
After a few cups of coffee, the troopers and the firefighters depart the restaurant.
Hester gets in his Ford Crown Victoria, a special model designed for police, and heads west toward the Port Angeles city limit.
His patrol takes him from Diamond Point at the Clallam-Jefferson county line to Lake Crescent, west of Port Angeles.
But to emphasize New Year’s Eve drunken-driving enforcement, he mainly patrols from Port Angeles to 7 Cedars Casino in Blyn.
At Front and Lincoln streets in Port Angeles, Hester activates his flashing blue lights as he pulled behind a van with Oregon plates.
The car was blocking two lanes of traffic at the key U.S. Highway 101 intersection. The driver said he was waiting for a parking spot.
After a warning, Hester moves on, backtracking east on First Street — U.S. 101 eastbound.
He radios in a Ford Expedition with December 2002 license plate tabs. Dispatchers in Bremerton respond, stating that the Expedition’s owner has renewed the plates for another year.
The driver likely hasn’t put on the new tags or hasn’t received them by mail, Hester surmises.
After another warning stop on Golf Course Road, radio traffic of another police agency catches Hester’s ear.
Behind the shotgun mounted on the console, a Radio Shack scanner churns through other law enforcement radio channels.
In this case, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department is handling a wreck on Palo Alto Road east of Sequim.
A fatality is reported, and the State Patrol is requested to respond.
Before Clallam County dispatchers can inform the State Patrol, Hester is already on the radio with Ahrens, relaying the information.
As State Patrol dispatchers tell Hester to proceed to the wreck, he is already under way along U.S. 101 — lights flashing and siren wailing.
“This isn’t what we wanted to happen,” he says as he maneuvers his car through intersections.
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The rest of the story appears in the Thursday Peninsula Daily News. Click on SUBSCRIBE, above, to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.