By Pepper Fisher

PORT ANGELES – At about 9:00 Monday morning Port Angeles police officers responded to a complaint of a driver slumped over the wheel of a car blocking traffic near Lauridsen Blvd. and Laurel Street.

Officers arrived and tried to evaluate what medical attention the obviously impaired driver might need, but instead the man chose to drive away and instigated a police pursuit.

Officers used pursuit intervention techniques, commonly called a PIT maneuver, at 5th and Albert Streets and also at First and Alder but the driver managed to elude them and headed east out of town on Highway 101.

A third attempt just east of Calsborg Road was successful and the pursuit ended with suspect vehicle in the grass near Sunny Farms. The grass under his car caught fire, but Officers quickly put the fire out with fire extinguishers.

57-year-old Robert Manley, Jr. was processed at the hospital for DUI and booked on Eluding Police, DUI with Drugs, and Driving While License Suspended.

We spoke with Deputy Police Chief Jason Viada after the incident and asked him about the very tricky PIT maneuver which, in this case, involved getting the suspect vehicle off the roadway after crossing, and avoiding, oncoming traffic.

“Well, the PIT technique can’t be utilized by just every officer. The officer has to have specific training in that. And location is important, the speed of the vehicles involved is important. And also, it’s not just classroom training, but it is training that occurs at a raceway down in Kitsap County. There’s vehicles set up with special bumpers on them that prevent them from being damaged. And officers get reps in, practicing the PIT maneuver over and over again. It’s not something that you can learn in the classroom and it’s it’s not something that just any officer can do.”

Viada said the operation left 3 police vehicles damaged, one of them undrivable.

(Photo by Lucas Oppelt)