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JOSEPH ROSE
The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)





SUMMARY: Hit and run | An Oregon State Police sergeant initiates a pursuit but within minutes becomes the pursued

One wrong turn and Oregon State Police Sgt. Andrew Merila found himself being chased by the man he had been trying to catch.

By the end of an 11-minute pursuit Monday near Seaside, the driver of a stolen pickup had rammed Merila's patrol vehicle twice, turning it into a useless wreck. The trooper wound up fleeing up a hillside, his handgun drawn, aimed at the truck.

"It was pretty backwards," Merila said Tuesday as he tried to figure out how to put the sequence of events into an incident report.

Merila, 36, was the only trooper driving the 200 miles of highway covered by OSP's Astoria station. In the past decade, budget cutbacks have forced the outpost to reduce its patrol force from 12 to six. Meanwhile, the total number of OSP troopers has shrunk from 440 to 310 statewide.

"It should be a public embarrassment," said Superintendent Ronald Ruecker. "It's insane. But that's the way it is right now."

In Portland and other Oregon cities, officers engaged in a pursuit can almost always call for help from nearby patrol cars. But for Merila, the closest backup was 25 minutes away in Banks.

"If I could have got backup, just one more unit, I don't think this guy would have tried the things he did," Merila said. "Another patrol car could have helped me pin him in."

The chase started on eastbound U.S. 26 at 3:57 p.m. Following the heavy Presidents Day traffic about 14 miles east of Seaside, Merila saw a 1988 Ford pickup hauling two all-terrain vehicles. They looked like the four-wheelers reported stolen from a nearby house a couple hours earlier.

Merila flipped on his overhead lights. The truck pulled over, waited a few seconds and sped off.

Chasing after the pickup, Merila radioed for backup.

A quarter mile away, the Ford stopped on the shoulder again. Two passengers, a man and a woman, jumped out and ran into the woods. The driver stayed in the truck.

Merila had opened his door and was thinking about drawing his weapon when the pickup took off again. Spotting the spinning red-and-blue lights on Merila's Chevy Tahoe, drivers in both lanes began pulling off the highway. The chase accelerated to 80 mph.

Then it stopped. Abruptly. Violently. The driver of the pickup stomped on the brakes. Merila saw smoke drifting from the tires and the Ford's white reverse lights glaring at him, advancing fast.

"He hit me hard enough to spin my vehicle sideways and kill the engine," the trooper said.

After a couple of tries, the dented-up Tahoe's engine came back to life. Merila gunned it. He caught up with the pickup, which turned onto a logging road.

After about 10 miles, the vehicles emerged from the woods and turned onto Oregon 103.

"He tried it again," Merila said. "He stopped on 103 and the backup lights came on again."

This time, Merila swerved around the pickup as it charged in reverse. But the driver didn't spin around and take off the other way. He shifted the truck into drive and began chasing after the trooper.

Glancing in his rearview mirror at the pickup on his tail, Merila turned onto a dirt drive. "I figured he was going to keep going and try to get away from me," Merila said.

Instead, the pickup's driver turned onto the long drive, sped after the trooper's vehicle and rammed it again. Merila said the collision lifted the back of the Tahoe into the air before the vehicle crashed. Merila jumped out, scrambled up an embankment and drew his handgun.

He had a clean shot, but didn't fire. The pickup backed onto the highway, taking out a road sign, before disappearing. "At that point, my life wasn't in danger," Merila said. "If he had punched it and come after me, I would have shot him."

Merila's backup, arrived 15 minutes later.

Troopers later discovered the Ford, which had been reported stolen, crashed on the side of a road. Witnesses said they knew the man who ran from the wreck.

On Monday night, Jerimia Ziebart, 25, of Jewell was arrested in his residence and faces 17 charges, including felony hit and run, assaulting a police officer, theft, burglary and methamphetamine possession.

Police said Ziebart has refused to answer questions about the attack on the officer.

Merila said he thought about taking Tuesday off. "But I had a six-page report to finish up," he said with a sigh. "You know how it is."

Joseph Rose: 503-221-8029; josephrose@news.oregonian.com

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