BREMERTON, Wash. — Shortly before 2 a.m. Friday, a Bremerton police officer tried to stop a suspected DUI driver who was driving erratically.
The driver fled and a short pursuit began. Police said one minute after the officer tried to stop the car, it slammed into the Iglesia Ni Cristo church at 1457 Sheridan Road.
[ See photos of the crash scene here. ]
A neighbor was asleep when he heard the impact.
"I was just hoping the guy was alright, but I could tell there was no way he was going to survive that. It was pretty horrific looking," said Keith Olson.
The driver, the sole person in the car, died at the scene of the crash. Police identified him as 44-year-old Hugh Washington from Mesa, Arizona.
"We're very fortunate this happened around two in the morning, so there’s not a lot of pedestrian traffic, there weren't any vehicles on the road at the time of the pursuit; and while it ended tragically, these things can go very bad, so we are fortunate that no one else was injured in this," said Bremerton police Lt. Pete Fisher.
The church plans to rely on its insurance to fix the crack and pay for the broken glass. Services will continue.
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