Latest news with #SarahClasen
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Yahoo
Off-duty WSP trooper was frequent regular at Richland bar before fatal crash, say police
Washington State Patrol Trooper Sarah Clasen and her husband were frequent customers at the Richland bar where she spent four hours before a DUI-suspected fatal collision, police reports show. Richland investigators say the Clasens' bar tab from March 1 is missing, but they seized 42 handwritten tabs from the Moon Palace for December, January and February with the names 'Trent and Sarah,' 'Sarah and Trent' or 'Sarah.' The bar tabs appear to show the couple visited the small bar at a closed Chinese-American restaurant three to five times every week in the two months before the deadly crash, according to police. One bar employee told police the Clasens were great customers who 'don't over drink.' She described them as 'responsible and respectable people,' said the report by Richland Officer Steve Heid. She said Sarah Clasen was a 'sweet, wonderful and caring person. ... She also acknowledged that anyone could make a mistake.' Sarah Clasen, a trooper for 13 years, is under investigation for driving drunk while off duty and hitting a 20-year-old Richland motorcyclist, killing him. At the scene, she denied being impaired but refused to take any field sobriety tests. Six hours later her blood sample taken with a court order reportedly showed her blood-alcohol level was 0.17%, said police reports. That's more than twice the state's legal limit of 0.08%. Richland police used camera footage from traffic lights and businesses to determine Clasen and her husband, Trent, a retired state trooper, met at the Moon Palace after her shift ended Saturday afternoon and they stayed there for four hours. Sarah Clasen, 35, then picked up a pizza she'd ordered online and was turning off Highway 240 into her Horn Rapids neighborhood a few minutes later when she hit Jhoser Vega Sanchez about 7:30 p.m. The nearly 400 pages of reports Richland police released to the Tri-City Herald under the Open Records Act show the Clasens were regulars at the Moon Palace, as well as at the Bombing Range Brewing Company and neighboring The Dive Restaurant and Bar near Horn Rapids. The Bombing Range brewery co-owner told investigations that she 'adores' Sarah and was shocked to hear that she was involved in the deadly collision. The Moon Palace has operated in the shopping center across Symons Street from the Uptown Shopping Center for more than 40 years. It's unclear when the restaurant closed but the bar continues to operate with access through a red side door. State liquor control records show the bar has had no violations in over 10 years. Some Richland police officers noted in the reports that they didn't even know the quiet little bar was open for business. While police said the bar's manager wasn't fully cooperative, the lounge does not have a history of problems. The dark cash-only lounge has a full bar with stools and a scattering of tables and TVs broadcasting sporting events. The handwritten bar tabs seized by police show drink prices are cheap, and one officer was told by a neighboring business owner they are 'very heavy-handed with their pours.' Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board has no restrictions on accepting cash only and, in fact, cash-only businesses are not unusual in Eastern Washington, according to the board's enforcement team. The Moon Palace bar tabs didn't show what customers order, only the date, the cost of drinks and a total. In the case of the 42 tabs marked 'Sarah and Trent' or just 'Sarah,' they generally showed a list of four to six entries, usually $6 to $7.50 each. The tabs seized for December showed one or both of the Clasens visited the Moon Palace at least five times, said police. In January, there were 20 tabs in 18 days with one or both of their names. And they had 17 tabs on 15 days in February, said police. Though it doesn't show what was ordered, it's clear customers aren't there to eat. The bar doesn't serve meals, just some prepackaged frozen appetizer items that can be heated quickly. Sarah Clasen was driving home in a Kia Telluride about 7:30 p.m. on March 1 after stopping by Domino's Pizza on Jadwin Avenue. She was taking a left from the highway onto Village Parkway when she collided with Vega Sanchez on his motorcycle. The Lamb Weston employee had taken the 2002 Suzuki out for a ride, after asking his parents if he could go for a drive on the bike he'd recently purchased. Investigators say he driving under the speed limit. In the hours after the crash, Sarah Clasen never mentioned stopping by the bar. At one point, she told Officer Kevon Skinner she was out grabbing dinner. 'She also said, 'I should have paid the $6 delivery fee,'' Skinner wrote in his report. Police started searching for where the Kia was earlier in the day by using traffic cameras. The footage showed the SUV was driving through north Richland between 12:30 and 1 p.m. Officer Jonathan Holen, who did the search, realized that Sarah Clasen couldn't have been behind the wheel because she was at work until 3 p.m. The police saw the Clasens' other registered vehicle, a GMC Sierra at 3:20 p.m driving on the 1400 block of Jadwin Avenue, just a few businesses away from the Moon Palace. Later, the Sierra and Kia were seen leaving the area about 7:30 p.m., Holen said. Police went to a nearby bar to ask if the Clasens had stopped there. They hadn't, but the employees there said the Moon Palace also has a bar. Security video from other businesses also showed the Clasens' two cars stop in the Moon Palace parking lot. The footage showed Trent Clasen went inside at 3:12 p.m. and Sarah Clasen arrived at 3:24 p.m. They are next seen walking out of the bar at 7:26 p.m., less than 15 minutes before the fatal collision. Three days after the crash, Officer Heid visited the Moon Palace at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 4, to find out more about what Sarah Clasen was doing before the collision. 'I saw that the bar was a poorly lit, dingy drinking establishment. I saw that it was occupied by approximately 10 middle-aged to elderly men at this time,' he wrote. Benton County Assessor records show the longtime owners are Jim and Chang Woo, but police reports say it's managed by their son Bradley Woo. 'Based on my little interaction with Bradley, as well as the overall environment at the location, I determined that Bradley would not likely cooperate with my investigation and provide me with documents willingly,' Heid wrote. So, he and Sgt. Shawn Swanson returned the next day with a search warrant from a judge to seize the bar's records for March 1. They showed Bradley Woo photographs of Sarah and Trent Clasen, and he 'gave a hesitant pause before answering, 'I, I, they've been in here a long time ago,'' Swanson wrote. Woo told officers he wasn't working that day. 'Woo refused to answer who the employees were. Woo was clearly uncomfortable with the conversation and said, 'You know, I don't really want to answer anything because I don't know what this is going to turn into.'' When the officers handed him the search warrant, his first call was to attorney Scott Johnson, the same private attorney who is handling Sarah Clasen's defense. 'I found it suspicious that Mr. Woo didn't identify himself by his full name to his attorney when he called and left a message. This made me suspect that Mr. Woo and his attorney had spoken beforehand, and that Mr. Johnson was expecting the phone call.' Woo got a call back from Johnson within a minute and they talked about the search warrant. Heid said he expected the quick call back was 'related to the attorney's prior knowledge of this incident as well as its high-profile nature.' Johnson told the Tri-City Herald he didn't know about the search until he received that phone call. 'I can unequivocally tell you that in the thousands of cases that I have handled, I have never advised anyone to destroy potential evidence. Any inference in any report that suggests otherwise is false,' Johnson said. The investigators wrote that they knew the Clasens had been in the bar, but when they searched for the tabs from March 1, they only discovered two tabs with other names from that Saturday shift. Bookkeeping at Moon Palace is 'unorganized and scattered,' Swanson wrote. They don't have computerized records and everything was written by hand and stacked on a counter behind the bar, wrote Heid. There were dozens of tab lists on waitress 'Guest Check' notebooks dating back a few months. 'Based on the number of times that Sarah and Trent had apparently visited this location, I was concerned that the receipts or the bar tickets ... had been intentionally destroyed,' Heid wrote in his report. When he asked about the apparently missing tabs, Bradley Woo 'was unable to provide a reasonable explanation regarding how he documents the transactions and how he keeps his books,' Heid said. 'His statements seemed inconsistent with the records that I observed and it seemed apparent to me that he likely had destroyed this piece of evidence,' Heid claimed. The officers, believing the would lose more evidence if they waited, asked a judge to broaden their warrant to let them collect the bar tabs from December through the end of February. Establishments with liquor licenses are required to keep a record of sales data for tax purposes, but individual bar tabs are not the required documentation, according to Samantha Guter, spokesperson for the Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board. Disposing of a customer's receipt does not violate any laws or rules the board reinforces, Guter told the Herald. Moon Palace renewed its liquor license in 2024 and had no violations from the state for 12 years. At that time, they received a written warning for not having proper alcohol server permits. And in 2004, it was among 45 of 120 Mid-Columbia businesses that sold liquor to minors in an undercover sting operation. Guter also said state records show no pattern of the Moon Palace being a trouble spot for drunk drivers. The state's 'Place of Last Drink' program gathers information on where DUI suspects had their last drink. The data is shared with the Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board and may lead to increased premises checks, Guter said. The program, however, is based on breath test results. Blood test results are not reported to the liquor board. State records show the most recent DUI linked to the Moon Palace based on a breath test was in 2013. However, in light of the March crash, Guter said state liquor control officers based in Pasco will be looking more into the operations of Moon Palace to ensure alcohol service and consumption is following state laws. An inspection on March 13 by Benton Franklin Health District employees show the business passed it's latest food safety inspection. Clasen has not been charged with a crime and was released from jail on her own recognizance on the Monday following the crash. The Spokane County prosecutor is handling the case to avoid any potential conflicts of interest in the Tri-Cities. More evidence testing is under way in the case, officials told the Herald. Clasen remains on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation and potential criminal charges. Tri-City Herald reporter Annette Cary contributed to this report.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Yahoo
Off-duty Washington State Patrol trooper arrested following DUI fatality crash in Benton County
Mar. 3—The Richland Police Department arrested an off-duty Washington State Patrol trooper Sunday night on suspicion of hitting and killing a motorcyclist while intoxicated. WSP Trooper and Public Information Officer Sarah Clasen was booked into the Benton County Jail following a crash with a motorcyclist on a state highway near Horn Rapids around 7:40 p.m., according to a Facebook post from the Richland Police Department. The motorcyclist was taken to the local hospital for treatment but died from his injuries. Once WSP learned one of their troopers was involved, they requested the police department to take over the investigation, the post said. Clasen, who was born in Spokane, is in jail on a 72-hour hold on suspicion of vehicular homicide related to driving under the influence as police continue to investigate. "The Washington State Patrol offers our sincerest condolences to the victim and their loved ones. I have every confidence that the Richland Police Department will investigate this case with great care and professionalism. We are thankful there were no other injuries and will of course cooperate in any way requested by the independent investigating agency," WSP Chief John Batiste said in a statement Monday morning. "We are reminded in times like these that law enforcement officers are not immune from tragedy nor from personal accountability, and we urge all motorists to always drive with focus, care, and caution." A spokesperson from the police department declined to release additional information.
