Crime & Safety
DUI Emphasis Patrol Coming To Gig Harbor
The special emphasis will span the Key Peninsula and will honor a man who nearly lost his life in a 2015 impaired driving crash.
GIG HARBOR, WA - Gig Harbor police and Kitsap County deputies will join forces for an impaired emphasis patrol. The departments are dedicating the emphasis to Clancy O'Connor, who was severely injured in a motorcycle crash with a driver high on methamphetamine.
The emphasis will take place Saturday between the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and the Hood Canal Bridge and across the Key Peninsula.
O'Conner lost his eyesight and a leg in his crash. In November 2015, he was driving home from his shipyard job in Bremerton when a 39-year-old woman high on meth crossed into O'Conner's lane along SR 304, hitting and pinning him against the curb.
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He was a 22-year Navy veteran whose job it was to help planes land on aircraft carriers, a job he kept because of his perfect eyesight.
By mid-2017, there were 13 fatal crashes in Pierce County involving impaired drivers, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. There were another 23 serious injury crashes by that point in the county.
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Police and local county traffic safety authorities will hold a dedication ceremony for the emphasis at the Gig Harbor police station, 3610 Grandview Street, at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Image via Shutterstock
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