Man who Severely Injured Ore. Trooper: 'I’m Taking Somebody with Me'
By Savannah Eadens
Source oregonlive.com
Recently filed court documents reveal the events leading up to a police chase in which an Oregon State Police trooper was critically injured last week.
Trooper John Jeffries, a retired FBI agent, had graduated from the Oregon State Police academy just a week before and was still in supervised training when he was struck by a driver who was fleeing police on U.S. 30 west of St. Helens, officials said.
Jeffries remains at the hospital in critical condition from a traumatic brain injury a week after the crash.
Earlier in the day on Nov. 11, Washington State Police responded to a domestic assault and robbery in Cowlitz County where suspect John Sanford Thralls, 53, of Longview fled the scene before police arrived.
Thralls’ car was later spotted by Rainier Police Department officers, who followed him as he drove south toward Portland. Oregon State Police patrol cars followed Thralls, too, and used their lights and sirens in an attempt to pull Thralls over after he passed a semi-truck in a no-pass zone, according to court documents.
But Thralls didn’t stop, police said, and instead began driving fast and “recklessly.”
Another Oregon State Police squad car, with Jeffries in the passenger seat, joined in the chase, police said.
One of the officers placed spike strips in the road, flattening Thrall’s passenger-side tires, police said. Police said Thralls was driving erratically and almost collided head-on with a U-Haul truck in the opposite lane. Then, according to police, Thralls turned his car around and drove towards the patrol cars, causing a sergeant to veer off into a grass field to avoid a collision.
Jeffries and another trooper had gotten out of their patrol car to try to stop Thrall with another set of spike strips in the road, police said.
Dash cam video showed Thralls driving toward and striking the patrol car where another trooper and Jeffries were standing outside. The patrol car was pushed back about 20 feet and hit Jeffries, throwing him into the air, according to the probable cause affidavit filed by the district attorney of Columbia County, Jeffrey Auxier.
Jeffries suffered a traumatic head injury, and other officers on the scene reported seeing a large pool of blood under him and said he wasn’t moving or talking, according to the affidavit.
Jeffries joined the Oregon State Police in March after 20 years with the FBI. He and his wife have spent the past 25 years in Portland, where they raised their two sons.
A Beaverton police detective who interviewed Thralls at Emanuel Hospital, where he was taken after the crash, reported that Thralls said he had “no option” but to turn around and drive at police because “If I’m gonna die, I’m taking somebody with me,” according to the affidavit.
Thralls was taken into custody and sent to Emanuel Hospital for injuries he sustained during the crash, police said.
Thralls was booked Tuesday at Columbia County Jail and charged with three counts of first-degree attempted murder for each trooper who was at the scene, as well as first-degree assault and fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer.
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