A “Quiet” Night, Continued:

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Copyright November 9, 2017 Art Labrousse

As I was going over the top of the hill, Joe told me that a lady had called in.  She was in the laundro-mat, and ‘the man your cop is chasing just tried to rape me!”

So, now I knew the reason he was running. 

I stayed behind him.  I know Hwy 197 pretty well, Carla’s parents lived in Redmond and we took the highway to see them, often.

However, I had never paid much attention to the cross roads.

We still driving fast and he still had his head lights off.  Fortunately, there was no on-coming traffic or it could have been bad.

Suddenly he made a quick turn to the right on a dirt road.  He did it so quickly he came up on the two driver’s side wheels and looked like he was going to flip.  He had a tire on the top of his car on the luggage rack, it went flying.

I started, again, to let them know he was in trouble and getting ready to have an ambulance sent, when the car righted itself and he hit the throttle, again, and turned on his headlights.

I radioed that we had left highway 197 on a dirt road to the the right at about five miles out.  In reality it was just over five miles, we had passed the five mile intersection and he had turned on what used to be called “Jap Hollow.”

I didn’t know that, it was just a guess based on driving the road so many times.

He kept going at a high rate(for the road) of speed, he started pulling away from me and went around a curve.

As I came around the curve I am faced with his car sliding, cross ways over the road and there was nowhere for me to go.

I turned my car to the right hoping I could slide to a stop without hitting him.  I was doing pretty well when my right rear tire went off the road.

There was no shoulder, only a very steep ravine.  The front end of my car swung around and down that ravine I was going.

All I could think of was “Lord, here I come.”

I had no idea how steep or what was on the hill.  As it turned out it was about 30 feet with lots of large rocks and a telephone pole at the bottom. 

Lord wasn’t ready for me, yet, I guess, I didn’t hit any of the rocks, missing a couple of large ones and the telephone pole by inches.

I got out and headed up the hill to the suspect’s car.  He was long gone.  I quickly checked the up hillside from the road, but couldn’t see any obvious places he may have gone.

I tried to get out on my portable radio, but it didn’t trip the repeater.  I got down to my car and couldn’t get out on the radio there either.  I left the overhead lights on, (so back up could find me) locked it up and headed for a farm house about half a mile down the road.

I made contact with the resident, a woman, whose husband was at work.  I asked if I could come in and use her phone.

She had me come in.  I told her to lock up the house, (in our neck of the woods, especially out in the rural areas most people don’t – some don’t even have locks on their doors) that there was a person I was chasing on the loose in the area.

I was out of breath, a bit shaken up, quite a bit angry because he got away, so...

Margaret answered the phone.  Now, I thought I had identified myself when she answered, but I might not have.

What I did tell her was where I was at so she could let the Sergeant and deputy know.  After giving her all the information she said, “okay, who is this?”

I was sure thankful that Joe had taken over, I was absolutely convinced she had no idea at all what just happened.

As I headed back to the suspect’s car the Sergeant was already there.  Our reserve Captain had a radio in his private car and he came in from the opposite direction.  As I got up there a Klickitat County (WA) deputy arrived; he had the tire, with the Wasco County Deputy not far behind.

Sergeant asked me if I was okay.  I said I was, I was just upset that the guy had gotten away from me.  We looked up and down the road but couldn’t find any tracks where he may have taken off.

We went down to my car.  There was a private road the farmer used to get to his field.  Sergeant asked me to see if I could drive out of there.  I could.

He sent me on into the office to start my reports and he and the reserve stood by the car to impound it.

I got to the station.  The Detective Sgt. was there with the victim.

She said the guy came in and forced her against a table (used to fold clothes) and started to pull down her pants when he suddenly let her loose and ran out of the building to his car.

It was then she saw my car go by.  As he was leaving she ran out to see if I was anywhere around and saw me start the chase.

She then found a pay phone and called the police.

She wasn’t injured, just shook up.

Joe came over to see how I was doing.  I asked him if Margaret had any idea what was happening.  He said she did, that she knew more than he did because he hadn’t caught all my transmissions while running over to the center.

I then went and thanked her, I asked her how she remained so calm through all of that, she said, “I wouldn’t have been any good to you if I hadn’t.”

She was a keeper.  She worked for us for several years.  However, she had some friends in Beaverton and eventually went to their dispatch center.  She was gravely missed.

She wasn’t very old and had gone through a lot of health issues through the years, but finally cancer caught up with her and she lost the battle.

Her family lived in Wamic, a small community in South County, I drove down to give my condolences and to let them know how much she meant to us.

I wrote my report and after finishing it headed home.

The next day was my day off; however, mid-morning the Detective Sgt. called and said the suspect was turning himself in at 1500 hours that afternoon.  Did I want to come in?

“Oh, yeah I did.”

We sat him down at a table and asked him to tell us what happened.

He admitted he had tried to rape the woman.  He had just dropped his pregnant wife off at the Nursing Home.  As he drove home he saw this woman go into the laundro-mat. 

He said he hadn’t had sex for several weeks and thought he could have it with her.  He parked his car and went inside.  She was faced away from him.

He grabbed her and started pulling her pants down when he saw my patrol car in the reflection of a window in a business across the street.  The window was not straight on with the street but slanted a bit, just enough that he could see me coming and spot lighting the businesses.

So, he ran.  He just wanted to get away.

His uncle lived down the road.  He ran down to his place and hid in the barn.

He finally got home and, knowing that I had seen him and that is car was impounded, he decided to turn himself in.

I got the ‘honor’ of arresting him, we charged him with attempted rape, reckless driving, attempting to elude, two counts of hit and run – the porch and the car. 

I then took him over to the County Jail where we lodged him.

The District Attorney dropped the attempted rape to harassment since the suspect had stopped attempting to rape her on his own – doesn’t matter that it was because he had seen me.

Since we couldn’t prosecute for the attempted rape none of the charges were felonies (running from the police is now) but, he got several months in the county jail.

One of the things we learned early in our career and should have told Joe when he said that “since it would be quiet” is you NEVER say that, seems that whenever we do something big always happens.

Then to add insult to injury; they had the patrol car checked, the shocks, were shot.  It cost $212 plus change to fix the car.

At the time any accident that had over $200 damage had to have a report.  Wasn’t happy with that suspect!

Copyright November 9, 2017 Art Labrousse

Later, Art (-: