Truck Plows Into Tavern; 2 Killed

KINGSTON, Kitsap County - Tim Smith, planted yesterday at the end of the bar at the Filling Station Tavern with two friends, rose casually and walked over to a nearby bulletin board.

Five seconds later, he heard an explosion.

"The whole bar was coming at me," he said.

Bodies, he said, were everywhere. His two friends were dying - one beneath the pickup truck that had just barreled through the tavern's front wall, and the other slumped over a trash can.

Smith said he walked to the truck, turned off the ignition key and pulled the driver from the cab. He said the driver, whom Smith and authorities identified as Glenn Kelly, was smiling.

Besides the two men who were killed, at least five people were injured about 4:30 p.m. when the pickup plowed into the tavern on State Highway 104, the State Patrol said.

Smith and others at the scene said Kelly had been refused service at the tavern earlier in the day and had exchanged angry words with a bartender.

One of those killed died at the scene. The other, a 40-year-old man, was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. Smith said both men were "peaceful, good-natured men" who had families.

An injured man, 45, was in satisfactory condition, a Harborview spokeswoman said.

Four people, including Kelly, were taken to Harrison Hospital in Bremerton.

The other injured taken to Bremerton were Diane Hawkins, 36, of

Kingston; Kevin Pinon, 22, of Denver, and Dave Hopkins, 30, of Littleton, Colo.

Authorities did not immediately release the names of those killed.

Kelly, 28, was treated and released at Harrison, said Sgt. G. R. Otto of the State Patrol.

Authorities discovered an outstanding warrant on Kelly, however. He was taken into custody and remained last night in the Kitsap County Jail.

Otto said Kelly apparently had been heading north on West Kingston Road when his truck crossed Highway 104, flattened a tree, glanced off the concrete wall of a building next to the tavern, then crashed through the wooden front wall of the tavern.

The truck missed the bar in the tavern, Otto said, but smashed through a floor-to-ceiling post and into several tables.

Smith, 31, said he and several other patrons lifted the truck off several victims.

Otto said Kelly told police he had suffered a seizure and lost control of the pickup. Authorities were checking the truck to see whether any equipment had failed.

A man who said he was Kelly's brother, but who declined to give his name, said Kelly had been taking medicine for seizures since he was 17, when he was in a serious traffic accident. But, the man added, Kelly had not recently been taking the medicine regularly.

Karen Oleksiak, a night-shift bartender at the Filling Station, said Kelly had been barred from the premises because of previous problems.

State Highway 104 is the main road through Kingston, leading to the ferry terminal. The Filling Station Tavern is about two blocks from the dock.

Both men killed, like Smith, were members of the North Kitsap County chapter of American Bikers Against Totalitarian Enactments (ABATE). The tavern was the group's headquarters, Smith said.

-- Times staff reporter Leonard Fleming contributed to this report.