January 8, 2020
We’re a week into a new decade and with that being said, let’s take a moment to reflect on 2019 from a day in the life of District 7, which encompasses Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom and Island Counties.
We kicked off 2019 with “Snowmageddon” or “Snowpocalypse” and it wasn’t an easy adjustment for the commuters; District 7 troopers responded to 871 collisions between February 3 and February 13, 2019. Even though our troopers were hard at work responding to calls and making sure the public stayed safe, they had time to play in the snow! Trooper Zillmer saw a kid playing in the snow in Arlington and decided to join him, while Trooper Reese was patrolling the Mount Baker Highway and had his turn on the sled for a quick minute.
March 20, 2019 marked the five year anniversary of the Oso Landslide, also known as the State Route 530 Landslide. This anniversary gathered hundreds of people to honor and remember the 43 people that were killed in the deadliest landslide in U.S. history. It was a day that forever changed Snohomish County, a day that forever coined the term “Oso Strong”.
In 2019, District 7 troopers contacted 177,579 people in the course of our daily work. We worked tirelessly trying to reduce the number of distracted driving collisions and it came with much success; we stopped 4,679 drivers for distracted driving and reduced the number of distracted driving collisions by 35% from the year 2018. Our troopers were able to safely remove 3,507 suspected impaired drivers off our roadways and had a 52% decrease of serious injury collisions caused by impaired drivers from the previous year! Throughout the district, we investigated a total of 7,572 collisions. Additionally, we stopped 64,393 drivers for speed; 46,335 of those drivers were considered aggressive. And last, but certainly not least, our troopers collectively made 1,137 drug arrests.
One particular traffic stop that was conducted by a Whatcom County trooper in September led to the identification of two possible sex trafficking victims and the arrest of their pimp. This investigation started after the trooper noticed a number of traffic violations being committed by a man driving a 1999 Chevy Tahoe southbound I-5 near Samish Way in Whatcom County. This case is still on-going and now involves numerous agencies throughout western Washington in hopes of identifying and saving more victims.
2019 is now behind us, but our relentless goal to make our roadways the safest in the nation will not stop! We will continue to show up day in and day out throughout 2020 and beyond in order to achieve those goals.
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