SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Dori: Friend of Navy vet killed by heroin user, police unable to prevent hit-and-run
Feb 11, 2022, 2:51 PM
A Kitsap County Sheriff's Office vehicle. (Credit: Deputy E. Young/Courtesy of Kitsap County Sheriff's Office on Facebook)
(Credit: Deputy E. Young/Courtesy of Kitsap County Sheriff's Office on Facebook)
It’s a small-world tragedy that double-punched Navy veteran Louis Haynes of Kitsap County.
Haynes told The Dori Monson Show how his long-time friend, John Skubic, 63, was plowed down late last month while riding his bicycle near his Poulsbo home by an alleged hit-and-run driver who was high on heroin.
In a fateful twist, Haynes described how his second friend is the Kitsap County sheriff’s deputy who encountered the suspect high on heroin while sitting in a parked car three hours before the homicide – but could do nothing to arrest him then.
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Haynes knew Skubic as a fellow Navy veteran, avid bicyclist, man of faith, and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard worker who was two months away from retirement. His deputy friend, meanwhile, is good cop whose encounter with the heroin user was “handcuffed” by new police restraint laws, Haynes told Dori.
Haynes described reading a social media post from his sheriff’s deputy friend: “I can’t put into words how much frustration this incident causes me.”
“I contacted this guy in his Jeep 3 hours before the crash,” the deputy wrote. “The two occupants were smoking opioids then as well. … A year ago, they would have both been arrested and would have been in jail, not on the road. But drug use is not an arrestable offense anymore in WA and sitting in a parked car with the engine off does not constitute being DUI. So I had to leave him with a warning. And then he killed someone.”
While the deputy urged his friends to “write their representative” about changing the new police restraint laws, Haynes is unconvinced that will do any good. Laws crafted by legislators in Olympia are “what got us here in the first place,” he told Dori’s listeners.
“This is human life. This is murder,” Haynes said.
Listen to Dori’s interview with Navy veteran Louis Haynes about his friendship with the hit-and-run victim and investigating sheriff’s deputy:
Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
