Hello all. A tragic thing happened as some of you may have heard in the news in Sacramento, California area. A chp officer was ran over at 70 miles per hour while laying out a spike strip on Hwy 50 east of Sacramento in the foothills, while other sheriffs were in pursuit of a suspect that had been stopped and found to have warrants out for his arrest on drugs. The suspect veered off the freeway and intentionally ran over officer Douglas Russell 46 who had served as a highway patrol officer for 22 years. As the chase reached speeds of 100 miles per hour up Hwy. 50 the suspect almost killed another chp officer trying to lay out a spike strip down the hill in Eldorado Hills, the officer narrowly escaped when the suspect intentionally tried to run him over first. Doug Russell was not so lucky, minutes later the suspect did the same thing hitting him at 70 mph under the Ponderosa Rd. bridge sending him sprawling. Within 2 minutes a helicopter whisked officer Russell to the hospital where he was pronounced dead 2 hours later. Fortunately, they caught this poor excuse for a human further up the freeway and he is being charged with murder.
Mr. Flipper when this happened was about a half mile heading west down Hwy. 50 to do some jobs. Unaware to me my son was with his girlfriend a half mile down the freeway from where this happened coming up the freeway in opposite direction on his way to Lake Tahoe with his girlfriend the same direction the chase had been going. He called me on my phone and said," Dad. What's happening, the traffic is jammed, they have police helicopters and what looks like 50 highway patrol and police cars everywhere!?" Then we both turned on the radio when on the phone and found out the bad news. My son and gilfriend took an alternate route to go on their trip, and I took about hour and half to get down to the valley on side roads. What is it that allows our court systems to let crazed people like this suspect to slip through the cracks and be a danger to others and himself? Too lenient? Stupidity in our legal system? What? Now all we know is a very nice man is dead and his only survivor is his wife, They had no children. As a matter of fact, when I lived in the Placerville area where this man worked I remember dealing with him, he was one of the nice chp cops. I think it was Ernest Hemingway who said,"Any man's death diminishes me". And when you are that close to the situation it makes you say," There for the grace of God go I". Quite an unpredictable life we lead, don't you think? You folks have any thoughts or have you experienced these scary things and how did you deal with it? Peace out, hope you are all well. Mr. Flipper