Sheriff’s deputy dad not making excuses for daughter who allegedly drove drunk
Nov 18, 2013, 12:52 PM | Updated: 2:15 pm
(Image courtesy Washington State Patrol via Twitter @wspd2pio)
Taken from Monday’s edition of the Dori Monson Show
Drunk driving is such a plague on our society and over the weekend a pickup truck was going the wrong way on I-5, early Sunday morning. It was driving southbound in the northbound lanes near 145th.
It’s a stretch of road my family and I drive on almost every day.
The alleged drunk driver is 22-year-old Vallen Brewer.
There was a violent collision. But what makes this story a bit more notable than most other drunk driving stories – the 22-year-old is the daughter of a King County Sheriff’s deputy.
I’ll tell you, my heart goes out to the sheriff’s deputy, because in my view, he’s just a dad. He’s a dad whose kid made a dumb decision. It doesn’t really matter that he’s a sheriff’s deputy. Yeah, we would hope that the kids of people in positions like that would make better decisions, but kids don’t always make great decisions.
It’s not always a reflection on the parents.
I thought the dad, King County Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Brewer, sounded like a stand up guy when he talked to a TV station about his daughter’s arrest.
“Like any other parent, I got one of those phone calls that no parent wants to get, in the middle of the night last night. My daughter was involved in a collision and may have been driving impaired,” recounted Brewer.
And I like the fact that he wasn’t making any excuses for his kid.
“Like I said all along,” Brewer continued, “throughout my career as a law enforcement officer, law enforcement officers or their families are not above the law or exempt from it. If my daughter made a big girl choice, she’s going to have learn a big girl lesson.”
You can be a great parent and your kid can still make bad decisions and it’s not a reflection on the parents every time. Sometimes it is. Sometimes kids make bad decisions because their parents have raised them through a lifetime of making bad decisions.
But sometimes, you say all the right things. You teach your kids all of the things they need to be taught, and they still make a bad decision.
The reason this dad is speaking out, as both a dad and King County Sheriff’s deputy, is because he wants to encourage other people to not make the mistake his daughter made.
“I’ve done my share of impaired driving enforcement and there are many other avenues out there beside getting behind the wheel,” he said. “Call a friend. Call a family member. Take a cab. Do something other than get behind the wheel.”
His daughter had a friend in the vehicle with her, they hit an oncoming SUV that was going the correct direction in those northbound lanes. The SUV flipped, but it’s very fortunate that no one was seriously hurt. One guy did have to be taken to the hospital but his injuries were minor.
Hopefully, this guy’s daughter learned a lesson that she will never repeat.
Taken from Monday’s edition of the Dori Monson Show
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