ML police to appear on TV show

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office and Moses Lake Police Department will appear on the Investigation Discovery show “Body Cam” at 9 p.m. tonight in an episode entitled “Life in Ruins.”

A mix of frontline police body camera footage and interviews, according to investigationdiscovery.com, the show is raw, intense and action-packed. It features routine calls across the country, spiraling to violence.

This will be the second time Moses Lake police are on the show, said Police Chief Kevin Fuhr.

The Investigation Discovery crew first came to town to discuss Chief, the K-9 who was shot by 22-year-old robbery suspect Jose Rivera in February 2020.

Police found Rivera outside his home in the Larson Housing community, sitting in a silver Chevrolet Silverado and pursued him into the Cascade Valley area.

After deploying spike strips, police chased Rivera by foot and exchanged gunfire. K-9 Chief was struck in the head and Rivera was fatally shot.

Chief survived the bullet and has since retired, according to Moses Lake police.

This story led to interest in body camera footage of October 2019, where officer Rudy Valdez pursued a vehicle on Patton Boulevard, Fuhr said.

Valdez first attempted to pull over 32-year-old James Milner of Moses Lake, when Milner fled and led the officer in pursuit.

The footage reveals Milner attempting to turn onto Westover Boulevard and instead smacking into a power pole, resulting in a large explosion and rattling the power lines to the ground.

Several explosions recur as Milner and a passenger step out of the car, but neither men are injured.

Officer Valdez wasn’t injured either, but a power line came down and struck the hood of his car.

Milner was booked into the Grant County Jail on outstanding warrants and faced charges of felony eluding and felony hit-and-run, according to Moses Lake police.

Occasionally getting the national spotlight is inevitable, said MLPD Capt. Mike Williams.

“One of our commitments is to transparency, putting out video, and so when you’re seeing video of what we do, sometimes that’s going to get nationwide attention,” he said. “I don’t know whether it’s a negative or a positive. It’s the byproduct of being transparent.”

As for the actual case, it could have been a lot worse, he said.

“We’re just very grateful that no one was seriously injured out of the incident,” he said. “It had the potential to be quite bad.”