Woman's actions before her death baffle Patrol, father

PORT ANGELES — It's hard for the young woman's father — and state troopers — to understand why Rosa Hammer, 27, pulled out a gun, with her small daughter watching, and got herself shot by a State Patrol officer.

Hammer died Thursday evening near Bremerton when, according to the State Patrol, she fired a gun at a trooper who had just handcuffed her friend after a traffic stop.

The shot hit State Trooper Ron Kessler, a nine-year veteran of the force, in the hand. Within seconds Hammer was dead, killed by the officer's return fire.

"My beautiful girl," said Ed Hammer, 68, of Port Angeles, holding up a photograph of his petite, dark-haired daughter yesterday.

"I don't know why this happened."

Hammer said his only child was born in South Vietnam where he worked toward the end of the war as a civilian employee of an electronics company in the city of Hue.

Hammer returned to the United States in 1975 with his wife and 1-year-old daughter.

The couple later divorced, and his wife got custody of the child, Hammer said. But when Rosa was 15, she left her mother's home in Forks, Clallam County, and moved in with her father.

Her father said she had a difficult childhood and a troubled adolescence.

People who knew her said she was funny, smart, high-spirited and a little wild: She liked fast cars, bad boys, parties and trying things.

"Cars and boyfriends, that's what she liked," her father said.

She had numerous speeding tickets and two alcohol-related driving convictions, according to court records. A neighbor filed a restraining order against Rosa Hammer six years ago.

Hammer graduated from Port Angeles High School and Peninsula Community College. She had a baby with a man who was not around much and found herself in meaningless jobs.

"She hadn't found her niche," said Patricia Bowcutt, a neighbor who also baby-sat for Hammer's 5-year-old daughter.

In a home plastered with pictures of his daughter, Ed Hammer said he's been trying to figure out what happened Thursday night that prompted her to confront a state trooper.

When she was 15, he said, she had been in a fight with a girlfriend at the school and the police had handcuffed her.

"That really threw her," he said. "I'm hypothesizing that she saw (the driver of the pickup) in handcuffs and she lost it."

According to the State Patrol, Rosa Hammer and her daughter were passengers in a pickup when Kessler, the trooper, pulled the truck over in Gorst, south of Bremerton on the Kitsap Peninsula, around 6:30 p.m.

The driver was speeding and Kessler thought he smelled alcohol on her breath, according to a police source. Intending to investigate her for suspicion of driving under the influence, Kessler handcuffed the driver and put her in the back of his Patrol car.

The State Patrol said Hammer got out of the truck and began walking toward Kessler and shots were fired, leaving Kessler injured and Hammer fatally wounded.

However, Ed Hammer said law-enforcement officials he spoke with indicated the shots were fired after his daughter refused to let the trooper see her purse.

"He wanted to see what was in the bag and she tried to run away. He caught her and out comes the gun," Hammer said.

Rosa Hammer was pronounced dead at the scene.

Kessler was flown to Harborview Medical Center and released yesterday afternoon. He has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.

The driver, a woman who has not been publicly identified, was released and driven to her home in Port Angeles, police said. They said there was insufficient evidence to charge her with any crime.

Rosa Hammer's daughter was taken into protective custody by the state and released to her grandfather's care.

As he talked yesterday, she played at his feet. From time to time, she looked up and said, "I want my mommy. I want my mommy."

Trooper Glen Tyrrell, spokesman for the Patrol, said the incident is a sad tale. "This is one that we may never understand," he said.