By Darrell R. Santschi
The Press-Enterprise
REDLANDS, Calif. — California Highway Patrol officers and family members were struggling Friday to cope with the death of a 33-year-old veteran patrolman whose motorcycle slammed into the side of a big-rig truck during a two-minute chase in Redlands.
Thomas Philip Coleman was described as a family man and leaves behind a wife, Jamie Jean, a 2-year-old son, Ryan, and an 11-month-old daughter, Shaylen.
The mood was subdued at the family’s home in a middle-class Fontana neighborhood Friday afternoon. Two officers stood in the driveway of the two-story house to turn away visitors. Several people were sitting in chairs in the garage and a woman was rocking a baby in her arms. Several neighbors stood talking to the officers in muted tones.
The officers said the family did not want to talk publicly about the tragedy.
At the accident scene in the morning, officers draped the body in an American flag as it lay in the southbound left turn lane for more than three hours. A fold-up tent canopy was positioned over the body, then removed for a 10-minute span in mid-morning as 18 officers and some technicians gathered in a circle around it and bowed their heads.
Some officers formed a line and saluted a few minutes later when a white San Bernardino County sheriff’s van backed up to the canopy and the officer’s body was placed inside.
Some officers at the scene had already draped a narrow black fabric, known as a mourning band, across their badges.
So many law enforcement officers die in California, Highway Patrol spokesman Daniel Hesser said, that “some officers carry the bands with them. They’ll have them in their bags or some of them have them in their pockets. You want to pay tribute right away.”
Flags at both the San Bernardino area patrol station on Western Avenue and the Inland Division headquarters across town on Brier Street were flying at half-staff Friday. Counselors were dispatched to the Western station to talk to grieving officers, Hesser said.
“They take it hard,” he said. “They have a job to do, but it takes a toll on people. There’s a lot of stress. It’s one of the things in this line of work you have to deal with.”
He said it is also a strain on the families of officers killed in the line of duty. Sometimes their children are shocked to discover how dangerous the work is, Hesser said.
Morning chase
The officer was killed about 6:29 a.m. Friday. The silver 2002 Ford Focus he was believed to be chasing crashed moments later into a curb in front of the Citrus Plaza shopping center on Lugonia Avenue, and its four occupants were taken into custody. They were being questioned late into the day, Hesser said, but had not been arrested.
One minute earlier, Coleman told dispatchers that he was chasing a Focus northbound on Mountain View Avenue just north of Interstate 10.
“As far as I know, he didn’t state the reason” he was pursuing the car, Hesser said, but that it involved “multiple violations.”
“For us, that generally means traffic violations,” Hesser said.
Hesser cautioned against assuming that fleeing is a sign that the motorists were guilty of more than a traffic violation.
“You never know,” he said. “We run into all kinds of strange reasons. Sometimes it is as little as not having a driver’s license or not wanting another ticket.”
The chase, at a high but undetermined speed, turned east on San Bernardino Avenue. As he passed Nevada Street, Coleman radioed that he was pursuing the sedan eastbound.
The sedan managed to make it through the intersection at Alabama Street a half mile to the east, but Coleman’s motorcycle struck the side of the cab of a semi truck that was driving northbound through the intersection on Alabama, killing him instantly.
It was not known whether the traffic light was green going north, CHP Public Information Officer Mario Lopez said at the scene of the crash, but the driver of the truck has not been cited for any offense.
Highway Patrol and Redlands Police officers closed off streets in a mile-square area around the crash scene for most of the day.
Coleman’s motorcycle apparently careened off the side of the truck, leaving a partially detached metal step and dented fuel tank below the driver’s door.
Diesel fuel “has a very high flash point,” Hesser said, so it did not catch fire.
Coleman was thrown from his motorcycle by the collision, and the motorcycle was partially incinerated, apparently when its fuel tank ruptured, Lopez said.
Wreckage was strewn across two lanes and into the intersection. Coleman’s blue and gold helmet was thrown free, sitting in a northbound traffic lane.
The fatal collision occurred at an intersection where two corners had vacant lots, a third had an orange grove and the southwest corner is home to the Packinghouse Christian Academy.
Principal Steve Hicok said the kindergarten-to-12th-grade school had its graduation last week and that only a few employees were on the grounds Friday. He said he was saddened by the death of the officer, but that “we’re just going along with our lives.”
Lone officer in chase
Coleman was the only officer involved in the chase at the time of the accident, Lopez said, although others were making their way to the area. One officer parked his patrol car at Lugonia and Citrus Plaza Drive, waiting to join in the pursuit, when the Focus apparently attempted to turn the corner from Citrus Plaza onto Lugonia and crashed into the curb on the south side of Lugonia at a 45-degree angle.
No one other than Coleman was injured.
Coleman was a seven-year veteran of the Highway Patrol who had been assigned to the San Bernardino patrol area as a motorcycle officer for five years. He spent two years working in the Altadena area after graduating from the CHP Academy on March 14, 2003.
Hesser said he was impressed with Coleman as a family man about two weeks ago, when Coleman brought his children to a public safety training program.
“That’s unusual for an officer to do that,” he said.
Coleman was one of about 10 motorcycle officers assigned to the San Bernardino station, Hesser said, and the first Inland area highway patrolman killed in the line of duty since motorcycle Officer Gregory Bailey of Rancho Cucamonga was killed while making a traffic stop on the shoulder of Interstate 15 and was struck by an errant driver on Feb. 25, 2006.
Coleman’s death occurred less than a mile from the Department of Motor Vehicles office on Lugonia where another San Bernardino motorcycle officer, James M. Goodman, was killed June 3, 2004, while responding to a hit-and-run accident when another vehicle pulled out in front of him.
Copyright 2010 The Press Enterprise, Inc.