RICHLAND — When an off-duty Washington State Patrol trooper was asked if she wanted to do sobriety tests following a fatal motorcycle crash, her answer was short.
“I don’t want to do any tests based on the circumstances,” Sarah Clasen told the Richland police officer when he asked about using a portable breathalyzer test.
Clasen’s refusal to do any tests was one of the reasons, Richland police Officer Steve Heid told other officers at the collision scene that she was going to be arrested.
The Tri-City Herald obtained Heid’s body camera footage as part of a public records request to the city. The more than 4-hour recording starts with Heid’s initial conversation with Clasen and ends with her being taken to the Benton County jail.
Clasen, who has been a trooper for 13 years, was booked under suspicion of killing 20-year-old Jhoser Sanchez while she was allegedly driving drunk.
She was off-duty and was turning into her Horn Rapids neighborhood in north Richland at 7:40 p.m. on Saturday, March 1. She was taking a left onto Village Parkway from westbound Highway 240 when she struck Sanchez as he was headed toward her in the eastbound lane of the highway, police said.
Clasen performed CPR until medics arrived but Sanchez, a Richland forklift operator for Lamb Weston, later died at Kadlec Regional Medical Center.
While Clasen was arrested more than a week ago, she has yet to be charged.
Benton County Prosecutor Eric Eisinger handed the case over to the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office because of Clasen’s working relationship with local police agencies.
Spokane Prosecutor Larry Haskell told the Tri-City Herald, he has not decided whether to file charges.
“I consider the investigation to be active and ongoing,” he said. “A charging decision will be made when the investigation is complete and a thorough review has been conducted by my office.”
The filing of charges in DUI vehicular homicide investigations can vary widely depending on the case.
For example, George R. Thomas IV was involved in a fatal Benton County wreck on May 24, 2024 but wasn’t charged with vehicular homicide until nearly a month later.
And Celcilo G. Romero was charged with vehicular homicide in February 2024 for allegedly driving recklessly in November 2023 when he crashed in Richland and killed Maria Vasquez Reyes, 17.
Clasen interviews
Heid’s video starts at 9:16 p.m. on March 1 as he’s walking up to the crash scene and introduces himself to Clasen, who is standing near the wreckage talking with another officer.
“I know that this is probably uncomfortable, but we’re going to treat this like if this was like anything else,” he says. “We want to figure out what was going on, just in order to rule anything out.”
Clasen is cooperative and explains she was returning home after picking up a pizza. She says she saw what appeared to be a car with a burned out headlight but believed she had enough space to turn safely.
“I was already slowing in the turn lane and saw him there, and I was like ‘I have enough time,’ I turned and as soon as I turned just felt boom,” she says.
She tells the officer that she believes Sanchez was driving fast.
After she describes the crash, Heid repeats that they’re going to “run this like normal.” He asks if she would do field sobriety tests.
“I don’t think I want to do any,” she says.
“OK. What about PBT (preliminary breath test)? Are you willing to do voluntary PBT?” Heid asks.
“I don’t want to do any test based on the circumstances,” she responds.
He then asks if she is willing to write out a statement, and she agrees. After providing her with the form and a clipboard, he then talks with several other officers. Heid mutes his body camera during that conversation.
He returns to her about 15 minutes later. He begins by asking Clasen to recount her version of what happened. She adds that there was another car behind the motorcycle and that she was going 20 mph as she made the turn in her SUV.
“It wasn’t like I was trying to squeak in,” she says. “There was plenty of room.”
Heid tries a second time to get her to agree to sobriety tests or a portable breath test.
“I’ll be honest with you. I would love to rule out impairment, but without the fields (sobriety tests), it’s hard to rule that out. Obviously, it’s voluntary, I won’t ask again. There may always be that question down the road,” Heid tells her.
“I’d just rather not,” Clasen responds. “I understand, but I know how it goes too.”
“What do you mean, you know how it goes?” Heid asks.
“Even if there is a little, if I had a glass of wine earlier or something like that. I just don’t want to do it,” Clasen says. “I definitely don’t feel impaired. I don’t feel like impairment was an issue.”
“Did you have a glass of wine earlier?” Heid asks.
“I’m not going to answer,” Clasen responds.
Trooper arrested
After reading Clasen’s statement, Heid leaves her to talk to a sergeant and another officer. The sergeant asks if he wants to use the crash reconstruction system.
“No. I think she has something on-board,” Heid says, meaning she may have consumed alcohol.
“Do you really?” one of the other officers asks.
“Yeah,” Heid says.
“Is there going to be enough to get a search warrant?” the sergeant asks.
“Yeah. I’ll write it,” he says.
“What changed?” the sergeant asks.
“I was just studying her. She’s got a couple of misspelled words on (her written statement). She wrote ‘sign’ as ‘sigh.’”
Heid also points out that Clasen’s estimates for distances were incorrect. She also said she was almost finished turning when the motorcycle hit her car, when the damage showed she had just started her turn.
When Heid brings up that her eyes are a “little bit” glassy, the sergeant brings up a possible explanation that’s garbled on the audio. Heid says they need to err on the side of caution.
“I do not have a great sense of smell, but I think I smelled a little bit of the odor of alcohol, enough for me to say,” Heid says. “I told her, ‘Hey we just want to rule out impairment and by you not doing the (tests). I’m not going to ask you again, but we can’t rule it out,’ and she’s like, ‘Well if I had a glass of wine earlier, I know how this goes.’”
Heid mutes the body camera footage until he returns to arrest Clasen. She doesn’t argue with Heid, though when she is being placed into the patrol car, she suggests that she would then agree to blow into a portable breathalyzer.
Heid tells her that it is too late for that now, and that he’s treating this like any other investigation of this type.
He takes her to the police department where he spends the next two hours writing out a search warrant to have her blood drawn to be tested.
After it was approved by a judge, she was taken to Kadlec for the blood sample and then she was taken to jail.
On Monday, March 3, she appeared in court via video link from the jail and was released without bail pending charges being filed. The results of her blood tests have not been released.
The state patrol has placed Clasen on leave pending the investigation.
