Drinking and Driving (Or as I call it the ultimate act of selfishness)

Each year about 16000 lives are taken due to alcohol related accidents. Every half hour someone is killed due to an alcohol related accident. Alcohol is a factor in almost 50% of all accidents. Every other minute someone is seriously injured in an alcohol related crash.

Think about those numbers in the time it took me to write this article 1 person was killed due to an alcohol related accident. In the time it took me to write those facts above 1 person was seriously injured in an alcohol related crash. Based on those statistics think about this right now it is 12:30pm EST, what time is now while you read this? Now how many half hours have passed between those times? That number (based on the US Dept of Transportation) is the number of people killed due to alcohol related accidents. Bet you never realized that did you.

I have been in LE work for close to 9 years and during that span I have seen many families ruined by the selfish act of one individual who makes the conscientious decision to get in a car a drive while under the influence of alcohol. I say conscientious because before you decided to go out that night/day while completely sober you were completely aware of the consequences associated with your actions should you choose to drink and drive (operate under the influence of an intoxicant).

Let’s look at one situation… and see what exactly this gets you. For starters you’re down a vehicle and out a bunch of money, which is actually the least of your worries (or should be). Take for example last night’s scenario…

You one male individual (maybe a successful and good person) went out with a group of friends thinking that was a good way to have a good time. Shortly after supposedly having this good time you make a decision (a conscientious decision) to turn that car on and drive to wherever. Most surely thinking “it will never happen to me”.

Ok now you are driving down the road and because you are so plastered you fail to see a red light at the intersection. You pile through that intersection and just at that time is another car that is also driving through the intersection and is occupied by three females (maybe they are friends of yours or even family who knows). BOOM! In the blink of an eye YOU have just taken the life of one person and seriously injured two others!

Four families will now live with the decision you made. Yes I said four because unfortunately now your family to must live with the burden that YOU KILLED SOMEONE!

Lights and sirens… emergency personnel are responding in the middle of the night,
only to end of having a Police Officer visit three families in the middle of the night one of which he or she will have tell that their daughter/mother is dead. Owe and yes they are also coming to help you.

Now after finally getting you out of your mangled vehicle you are rushed off to the hospital where the doctor is paged and now has to leave her family and spend the entire night trying to fix you! She then after hours and hours of putting you back together so that another life is not taken ends up having to take a strong medication to cure her migraine that she know has from getting no sleep.

Every one of those emergency responders, doctors and medical staff that treated you and tried to revive the three girls will also forever live with that decision you made.

So how cool was that night?! Bet you wished you had learned from the thousands of other selfish individuals who made that same decision.

We can only pray for the families of those three girls and yes we will pray for your family as well.

My personal opinion is that is that you spend the rest of your life behind bars or a good chunk of it contemplating that decision you made.

While I don’t know you I only hope that you did not have children or a wife that to would have to forever live with your decision and possibly without their dad.

God will forgive you and people do change BUT that decision you made is forever etched in stone. One person will never have another day here and you did that!

If you are reading this and have made the same decision this guy did but have by the grace of God not killed anyone please learn from this guy... if you are reading this and now someone who drinks and drives forward this to them.

By Paul Bodenhamer (LE Officer and husband of ER Physician)

Roseburg's Charlie Company Returns Home!

Douglas County residents are invited to participate Saturday in a procession of vehicles bringing back Oregon National Guard troops returning to the county from Iraq.

“If we have a 20-mile procession, I would have a big smile on my face,” said National Guard Maj. Darren Hoschouer, a Roseburg resident who is executive officer for the 1st Battalion, 186th Infantry, the parent unit for Roseburg's Charlie Company.

The procession will begin from the Medford armory at 1701 S. Pacific Highway. Vehicles will stage there, following the conclusion of the demobilization ceremony a mile away at Spiegelberg Stadium, 815 S. Oakdale Ave., on the campus of South Medford High School.

The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. and is expected to last an hour.

Scheduled speakers include Gov. Ted Kulongoski; Major Gen. Raymond F. Rees, adjutant general of the Oregon National Guard; and Medford Mayor Gary Wheeler, said Sgt. Eric Rutherford of the Oregon Military Department's Public Affairs Office.

Beginning at 2:30 p.m., the 325 soldiers who spent the last year in Iraq will march from the armory to the stadium, using Stewart and Holly streets.

The procession to Douglas County will travel along Interstate 5 before exiting at the Harvard Avenue interchange. The vehicles are expected to arrive in Roseburg between 6 and 7 p.m.

Roseburg radio station KQEN, AM 1240, will broadcast live from the ceremony beginning at 3 p.m. News director Brian Prawitz will provide updates as the procession heads to Roseburg and will also cover the parade through town.

Earlier Saturday, the soldiers are scheduled to travel from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state to the Medford armory either by plane or by bus, Hoschouer said. He said he expects the journey will be made by plane, but if it's made by bus, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office will escort the troops going south through the county and back north to Roseburg following the demobilization ceremony.

Residents who have family or friends serving in Charlie Company are also invited to visit with the soldiers before the ceremony. They are expected to be at the Medford armory for 90 minutes to two hours before the ceremony.

“We ask that general members of the public not attend that gathering. There will be time after the ceremony to thank those soldiers and to speak with them,” Hoschouer said.

A second group of National Guard soldiers arrived at Joint Base Lewis-McChord late Thursday morning. They were stuck during a five-day ban on flights due to floating volcanic ash following an eruption in Iceland. Those 40 soldiers, including about 10 from Roseburg, will be welcomed home during a smaller ceremony tentatively scheduled for April 30 in Ashland.

“We will be recognizing those soldiers and their service, too,” Hoschouer said.

• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 541-957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@nrtoday.com.

Additional Notes:
So you know...
Residents who want to show their support for soldiers from Roseburg's Charlie Company returning from Iraq are invited to line a parade route Saturday as the soldiers are bused through the streets of Roseburg.

The buses are estimated to be arriving in town from 6 to 7 p.m.
As for the parade route, the buses will exit Interstate 5 at Harvard Avenue, head past the Roseburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center and then out onto Garden Valley Boulevard.

From there, the buses will travel west to Stewart Parkway, turn right and then pass Mercy Medical Center on the way to Edenbower Boulevard.

The final leg will take the soldiers along Edenbower to Northeast Stephens Street and then north to the National Guard Armory at 111 General Ave.

Families of Slain Wash. Officers Drop Claims

BY CHRISTINE WILLMESEN
Seattle Times

Tears rolled down the tired faces of three women who sat side by side on a family-room couch Friday afternoon in Puyallup. They were the two widows and a sister of three of the Lakewood police officers gunned down by Maurice Clemmons four months ago in a coffee shop.

They announced plans to file multimillion-dollar claims against Pierce County, hoping to spark jail reforms and create a safer community. When the Pierce County Sheriff's Department and many in the community verbally attacked them, they were shocked. Much of the public, which had sympathized with these mourning families, now seemed to vilify them.

"We thought this would help with healing," Kim Renninger, widow of Sgt. Mark Renninger, said of the claims. "But it has opened a wound I never expected. What hurts most of all is them calling me greedy."

Bitter comments came from talk-radio callers and anonymous commenters on newspaper and television Web sites.

Renninger and Officers Ronald Owens, Gregory Richards and Tina Griswold were gunned down by Clemmons on Nov. 29.

Lawyers for all four families had announced plans Thursday to file $182 million in claims against the county, saying the Sheriff's Department and jail failed to prevent the officers' deaths by not monitoring jail telephone calls made by Clemmons. He repeatedly vowed that he would kill police officers once he made bail.

On Friday afternoon, the three women said their families have dropped their claims against Pierce County because of the backlash.

"We don't want this ugliness. I just want it to be over," said Kelly Richards, one of the widows.

Owens' sister, Ronda LeFrancois, said: "We were in it for the change. The system is broken. I never would have been able to make it through the tragedy without the community. We'd never throw this back in their face."

A lawyer for Griswold's husband, who filed a claim, said Friday that his client was considering whether to change course, as well.

In the months before the murders, Clemmons can be heard in recorded jail calls telling his wife and other family members that he planned to kill law-enforcement officers. As with all inmates, his phone calls were recorded but not monitored.

The Seattle Times listened to all of Clemmons' recorded telephone calls, having obtained them first under the state's public-records law.

Earlier Friday, the three families said the claims weren't about money but policy changes and revised the claim to reflect their thoughts by dropping the monetary demand.

By Friday afternoon, the families were distraught at the public's negative perceptions and decided they didn't want to pursue the legal claims.

Family members say they don't expect the jail to monitor hundreds of inmate calls a day. Instead they want the county to develop a procedure to evaluate prisoners and listen to calls from those deemed the most dangerous.

"I'm wanting a policy put in place so they monitor phone calls of high-risk inmates -- bottom line," Kim Renninger said. "We see a flaw, and we're trying to put a spotlight on the flaw and fix it. I love and support this county, but I want it a safer place for my kids and families."

Attorney Bob Christie, representing three of the families, said he contacted legal advisers at Pierce County in early March to discuss the families' ideas about monitoring jail recordings. But he said "we got stonewalled." He crafted administrative claims for his clients, intending to force the issue. He assigned multimillion-dollar amounts for damages, a move he now regrets.

Christie said claims are typically filed seeking a dollar amount in damages. However, the $182 million total created a distraction from the purpose of the claims, he said.

"I feel horrible. My approach to this created this backlash," Christie said. "You can blame that on me."

Renninger was upset that Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer acted surprised by the claims and attacked the families in the local media with words like "greed" and "meritless lawsuit."

"It wasn't about the money," she said tearfully.

After the four officers were murdered, the community reached out to the wives and other family members, supporting them emotionally and donating $2 million to an education fund for the officers' nine children.

"People think we're living high off the hog with this $2 million," LeFrancois said. "That's so untrue."

The fund is controlled by a board of trustees that allocates money only to the children's education. The widows and other family have received no money from the account.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service