City employee was drunk, on duty when he fatally struck 73-year-old man, records say
A City of Kent employee was drunk on the job when he fatally struck and dragged a 73-year-old pedestrian Sunday, court documents say.
Nicholas Slater, 37, is charged with vehicular homicide in the death of Alan Kern. He is being held on $150,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.
Charging papers give this account:
Kern had just gotten off a bus and was crossing 108th Avenue Southeast around 6:10 p.m.
Slater left a bar to close up Chestnut Ridge Park and ran a stop sign on 204th Street as he turned right onto 108th Avenue Southeast.
The city-owned Ford F250 pickup truck struck Kern, but Slater allegedly was too drunk to notice.
He continued driving, dragging Kern’s body behind the truck, until a witness pulled in front of him and forced Slater’s truck to stop.
Kern was pronounced dead at the scene.
Slater took a breathalyzer test and was found to have .344 blood alcohol content, which is four times the legal limit of 0.08.
After initially claiming he only had one beer at the bar, Slater allegedly told police he was an alcoholic and was too drunk to realize he’d hit anyone.
“There’s no excuse. There’s no way to make this OK,” Mayor Dana Ralph told KOMO News. “As a city, like I said, we are taking swift action to terminate the employment. It’s not OK, not acceptable, and we’re all saddened by the outcome of his poor choices.”
Slater was hired four months ago with the city’s parks department and was primarily responsible for opening and closing parks, officials said.
Despite having a DUI on his record from nearly a decade ago, Slater passed the city’s background check before being hired because it only looks at the last three years.
“It’s the only thing on his record. There was not as much as a speeding ticket or running a stop. Nothing that would give us any indication that this was a pattern,” Ralph told KIRO-7. “This is one person, very short-term, temporary employee, that made extremely bad decisions, but there are hundreds of city employees that get up every single day and do nothing and take care of the city.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2019 at 9:59 AM.
