Lakewood Cop Arrested for DUI Told Witness Not to Call Police

According to the Tacoma News Tribune (October 11, 2018): A Lakewood police officer arrested for DUI potentially violated a number of department policies on the day he crashed his department-issued car in Gig Harbor last month, a department spokesman said.

Officer Eric Bell, 46, had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when arrested Sept. 23, according to a report written by Washington State Patrol Trooper Matthew Rogers.  He blew a 0.23 on a breath analyzer. The legal limit is 0.08.

Bell was alone in his unmarked, city-owned 2012 Ford Escape when it left Wagner Way, crashed through trees and came to rest outside the home of an elderly resident. Minutes earlier, he had driven his underage son in the vehicle, Rogers’ report said.

Bell had dropped the boy off with his ex-wife and was heading home at the time of the crash, according to Rogers’ report. Bell told the trooper a deer jumped in front of him, causing him to swerve off the road near The Lodge at Mallard’s Landing.

A witness to the wreck said she didn’t see a deer in the road but heard the Escape coming down the road at a high rate of speed, its tires screeching, and crashing into trees.

She wasn’t the only witness.

Irmi McKinstry, the resident whose home Bell’s car nearly crashed into said I will call the police, McKinstry recalled. “He said ‘No,’ really loud. But I called anyhow."

Lakewood officers are required to notify local police agencies as well as their own department when they are involved in an accident in their city-owned vehicles. In addition, officers cannot tell or intimidate witnesses to not report incidents to other police officers or agencies, Lawler said.

Neither Bell nor his son should have been in the vehicle to begin with. Bell wasn’t authorized to use the car on his day off, Lakewood police spokesman Chris Lawler told The News Tribune on Thursday.

Gig Harbor police responded first to the wreck, but they requested State Patrol assistance due to the fact a police officer was involved.

This wasn’t the first time Trooper Rogers had encountered Bell.

“I instantly recognized Bell as a driver from a prior collision that I investigated,” Rogers wrote.
That incident occurred June 22 at the southbound Interstate 5 ramp from state Route 16, just south of South 38th Street. Bell was driving a Jeep.

“I recalled the collision because it involved two drivers that had been arguing with each other before the collision and following the collision,” Rogers wrote.

It was also memorable, the trooper said, because Bell had identified himself as a Lakewood police officer.

Lawler said Lakewood police were unaware of the June incident until asked about it by The News Tribune. An accident off duty and involving a private vehicle does not need to be reported to the department, he said, but the department would seek a copy of the collision report to review.

After the wreck in Gig Harbor, Bell told Rogers that he was using his police car to drop off his son because his ex-wife had his Jeep and the only other vehicle he had was an RV, according to the trooper’s report.

The only time an officer can drive his or her child in a police vehicle is to drop the child off somewhere, at school for example, and only if the officer is on the way to work, Lawler said.

“We basically don’t allow you to do it any other time,” Lawler said.
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