Night of 1,000 Stars honors traffic cops
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Kory Judkins of the Grant County Sheriff’s office was among the officers to receive awards for work on traffic safety during the ‘Night of 1,000 Stars’ dinner Friday evening.
MOSES LAKE — Law enforcement officers from around Grant and Adams counties recognized their colleagues who work the traffic details Friday night at the annual “Night of 1,000 Stars” dinner at the Grant County Fairgrounds.
Officers received certificates for their work in stopping cars whose drivers were distracted, who were driving drunk, were speeding, not using child safety seats or seat belts. Josh Sainsbury of the Grant County Sheriff’s Office talked about an incident where the driver didn’t follow those rules.
The driver wasn’t wearing a seat belt, rolled his car and was ejected, ending up under the car, Sainsbury said. “We got lucky,” Sainsbury said - the driver suffered a broken pelvis rather than getting killed. There have been more than 50 traffic fatalities in Grant County since 2011, Sainsbury said; the statistics are going the “wrong way right now.” The emphasis on traffic safety is designed to reduce accidents and deaths that might result from those accidents, said Alison Mitchell, local “Target Zero” manager for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.
Officers from the Moses Lake, Ephrata, Quincy, Royal City, Soap Lake, Othello, Warden and Mattawa police departments and the Washington State Patrol were recognized for their traffic safety work. The top three or four officers in each category (or in the case of seat belt enforcement, the top five) received a special award.
Korey Judkins of the sheriff’s office, Rey Rodriguez of the Royal City PD and Jaret Fulbright of the sheriff’s office received the awards for child seat enforcement. Judkins and Fulbright, along with Adrian Jones, Joshua Wood and Benjamin Borgman, all of the Washington State Patrol, received the seat belt enforcement award.
Ross Tylock, Mason Acheson and Brittany Crosby, all of the WSP, received the speed enforcement awards. Judkins, Thomas LaFave of the WSP and Fulbright were recognized for their work in catching distracted drivers. Tyler Kaelin, LaFave and Michael Valentin, all of the WSP, received recognition for their work in DUI enforcement. Mitchell also gave some special awards to people who helped her during the year.