State trooper's car kills pedestrian on Mill Creek highway

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Brock Loshbaugh of Mill Creek died doing something that is quite commonplace in his neighborhood — jaywalking home.

Loshbaugh was struck by a State Patrol trooper's car at 10:24 p.m. Tuesday on a section of the Bothell-Everett Highway where sprawling apartment complexes are across the street from minimarts and strip malls. Many residents of the area jaywalk across the highway rather than walk three blocks to the nearest stoplight.

Loshbaugh, a gregarious 22-year-old who studied philosophy and therapeutic healing, was walking east across the highway while Trooper Jason M. Crandall was driving north, near 164th Street Southeast. Crandall, based in Bellevue, was taking his patrol car home because troopers typically keep them in case of emergency calls.

Patrol officials said yesterday that Crandall did not appear to be at fault; his cruiser was traveling at or below the posted 40 mph speed limit, Sgt. Jeff Sass said.

Loshbaugh, described by his parents as 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds, was wearing dark clothing, troopers said.

His mother, Melodee Loshbaugh of Redmond, calls the highway dangerous even for auto traffic. She said her son, friends and neighbors frequently jaywalked across.

"It's an access issue," she said. "It's one of those bad places."

Loshbaugh lived in the 111-unit Towne Square Apartments, where manager Denise Foss estimated that the highway is crossed 50 times a day by tenants who jaywalk. They have asked, unsuccessfully, for a stoplight at the apartments' entrance.

"I think we definitely need a crosswalk," Foss said. "The speed limit needs to be 35, not 40, and a light needs to be put in."

Mill Creek officials said there have been no other serious car-pedestrian accidents there for at least 15 years, and that safe crossings are available at two stoplights, at 164th Street Southeast and at Mill Creek Boulevard.

"I believe that everybody has to take ownership for their actions," said Police Chief Bob Crannell. "If there is a legal or safe place to (cross), that's what you should do."

On Tuesday night Loshbaugh had visited the bar at nearby Claire's Pantry, then stopped at a grocery store to buy frozen pizza and a salad, his roommate, Brett Selg, said.

Meanwhile, Loshbaugh's girlfriend was driving to the Towne Square to meet him. She arrived after he was struck and was kept behind the police roadblock. She walked over, saw that her boyfriend had been hit, and phoned his family. Selg said he took his roommate's pulse before paramedics arrived. Loshbaugh died about an hour later at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

His parents, grieving with friends at their Redmond town house yesterday, said they were angry that the State Patrol had not contacted them. His father, Dan, wept as he watched noon television footage of the smashed windshield.

"If the officers were wrong, they should be held accountable," Melody Loshbaugh said. "But you know what? I think the officer must be dying on the inside. I'm thinking how awful it must be for the person who killed him, what a powerless feeling that must be.

"On the other hand, I believe there is a divine plan and everything happens as it was meant to be."

Loshbaugh was a poet, guitar player and intellectual, his parents said. He was studying therapeutic touch at a school of holistic medicine, and he waited tables at the Coho Cafe in Redmond.

"When he was 15, he told us he was a shaman and a healer," his mother said.

He spent six months traveling and doing volunteer work in Peru, and he wrote poems with mystical themes. In one, "The Chess Match," the young man challenges God and soon realizes: "I must be willing to be second, before I ever begin. For you can never beat another, if all things are truly one."

He has an older brother, Gabe, 24, a student at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

Friends were organizing a candlelight vigil last night at the site of the accident, and a celebration of his life will be held in the Coho Cafe.

Trooper Crandall, who has been with the Patrol two years, was shaken by the accident, said Sgt. Steve Burns. He has not been placed on administrative leave and can return to work anytime, "but we want to make sure he's healthy when he returns," Burns said.

Staff reporter Dave Birkland contributed to this report.

Mike Lindblom can be reached at 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com.