The Longview Race

                                                                         DR KARL WALLACE

                                                                        The Longview Race

      Here is presented my story, some of which you already know there being more than a few media news stories about this unlikely unusual event. It happened on the evening of Nov. 16, 2007, starting from the Oregon side of the Vancouver Colombia James Bridge during rush hour and ending at a tire shredder thirty minutes and forty-five miles later at exit 409 I-15 in Longview, Washington.

     I was insanely paranoid.

     All told I caused seven separate car accidents. I rammed each of the seven car’s right rear bumpers if the drivers of the car didn't move out of the speed lane. I had the hazard lights blinking of my van, the headlights on bright, and a heavy hand on the horn; one bump warning, two bump warning, the third bump was a full throttled thrust from my 457 horse-power engine. Each car skidded counterclockwise out of the of the speed lane left, onto the edge of the medium.

     In the state of mind I was in I thought I was being the "Good Samaritan." I was teaching the self-centered speed lane hogs a lesson in courtesy driving. I was on an emergency errand to the FBI agency in Longview to tell them of the corruption, top to bottom, in the Washington State Police Dept. I was manic bipolar. I was seeing bright brilliant colors and the scene looked to me as if the police chasing me at over 85 mph were cartoon people, something like in the movie, “Rodger Rabbit.” I purposely drove over the tire shredder at the Longview exit thinking it was being put there by little rubber video projected cartoon police trying to fool me. The tire shredder didn't evaporate like I expected. The shredder was a shredder. My van went from about 90 miles per hour to zero in about 6 seconds, tires flat, burning and I held my foot on the brakes.

      Evidently, a long bed logging transport tractor trailer truck driver, having been talking to the police on his CB, pulled his loaded logging truck across the exit. I drove into a funnel of the logging truck’s fully loaded trailer and the guard rail, coming to a crunching stop. The trip was over. My van was angled at 45 degrees, at full rest. My RV was totaled. It lay tilting on its side, the top half hanging over the guard rail, engine, tires and all. Behind me lay thirty-five miles of scattered wreckage from the seven cars I had pushed off the Interstate.

       I crawled across the inside passenger door on my hands and knees to the open window. The windows had been down the whole trip. I had been waving thumbs up at the courteous drivers, or giving the bird to rude drivers. I dropped a long way down through the open window into a dried swamp patch of cattails which was edged with pussy willows. I thought part of their plan was to set me up for a lobotomy. I was yelling, threatening two big cops and telling them how much trouble they were getting into by messing with me. Up the embankment I was dragged. The police sat me down , handcuffed behind my back at the guard rail. I was surrounded by dozens of uniformed, scraggy plain clothes detectives, a sparse mix of suits and ties, a helicopter discretely hovered off to the side of the scene. I was shouting to the slowly passing cars in the near lane, defying the police, refusing to give up my driver's license, another misdemeanor. An ambulance arrived. I was strapped onto a stretcher injected and passed out. My van was towed to the police impound lot while I lay strapped down, unconscious, on my way to the Longview hospital. 

       Five months later after my temporary supervised release, not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, the Chief of Police in Longview talks  “Karl’s Towing” into hauling the wreckage off the police impound  lot, it was either haul the mess away or not get any police tow calls.     

     While in jail I, added the swat team as being corrupt because they laz-e red me on my cheek bone next to my eye;. I could have been blinded. That is reality. In that event, I was charged with seven felony counts and fourteen misdemeanors, are accumulated in less than thirty minutes. One hundred and thirty-seven days passed between the times of the crash until I left the county jail in Vancouver Washington.  137 days! Over four and a half months (4.57 to be exact). I was hospitalized in Tacoma, Washington. I was Jailed a second time in Vancouver for thirty more days.

         I can still remember every little detail from the time I left Portland up to when the ambulance arrived. I passed out and was driven to a hospital in Vancouver for overnight observation. The next three days prior to my arraignment I spent confined in the county jail in Vancouver .

         Three months later almost to the day, while I was in the Washington State Mental Correction Center in Tacoma, undergoing a ninety day evaluation that the Judge had ordered at my arraignment, I woke up at 5:30 am. My paranoia was mostly gone. Needless to say it was one of the happiest days of my life! Never have I experienced clinical hallucinations, heard voices or had long depression periods; common symptoms associated in bipolar, and schizophrenia patients which baffled all the doctors and interns during my five months of incarceration. One phsychiatrist recorded a diagnosis that surprised me. He wrote that he thought I was faking it. No way jay. I just got better no one knew why and my temporary insanity plea was accepted by the court, so I was able to go to trial and was found innocent by reason of temporary insanity. The same day I was released into the custody of a psychologist.

     My daughter happened to be the psychologist the court appointed me. She determined a day or two after the Judge released me into her custody that my problem was a thyroid imbalance.

To be continued…

To read more stories by Karl Wallace go to:      karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com