Houston Personal Injury Attorneys – Smith & Hassler

A Brazoria County Deputy Sheriff was killed and another deputy riding with him was seriously injured in a collision on Highway 6 at FM1128 in Manvel, Texas at around 10:30pm Sunday June 26th. The two deputies were traveling in their patrol car on Highway 6 when a pickup truck made a left turn in front of them into a Chevron gas station. Apparently the pickup truck driver did not see the deputies’ vehicle.  The patrol car t-boned the pickup truck, killing one of the deputies. The two people in the pickup truck were injured and were life-flighted to Memorial Hermann along with the injured deputy. A Texas DPS trooper stated the pickup truck appears to be at fault based on their preliminary investigation for failure to yield the right-of-way to the deputies patrol car. The deputy who died in the collision was riding in the front passenger seat of the patrol car. Channel 13 Eyewitness News’ story is here. The Chronicle’s story is here.  The Chronicle’s story identifies the deceased Deputy as 27-year old Charles Allen Vanmeter, and the injured Deputy as 26-year old Joshua Mark Waldrop. The same story also lists the driver of the pickup truck as being 18-years old and the passenger as 17-years old.

A pedestrian is dead after a hit-and-run collision in Houston near the intersection of Westheimer and Fountainview. The male pedestrian was trying to walk across Westheimer at around 1:20AM when he was hit by a pickup truck. The victim died at the scene and the pickup driver fled. According to investigators, if the driver had remained at the scene he/she would not have faced charges because it appears the pedestrian was jaywalking. Police are looking for the driver of the pickup. Channel 13 Eyewitness News’ story is here.

Three separate accidents involving a total of 8 vehicles occurred one after the other on I-45 near Cavalcade and police believe alcohol to be a factor in two of those accidents. The first car involved two cars: nobody was hurt in that crash. Investigators had stopped traffic to investigate the first crash when a GMC failed to stop (believed to be stolen), crashing into two other cars and then a police car. The only injury was to the Yukon driver, who police believe was intoxicated at the time.

The last accident happened at the top of an overpass near Patton: 25-year old Christopher Trumpower, driving a black Jaguar, came up the hill and did not see the two cars stopped at the top of the hill. Police believe Trumpower tried to swerve around the vehicles at the last minute, but the passenger side of his Jaguar struck the rear of a silver-colored Lincoln MKX SUV. Tragically the passenger riding in Trumpower’s Jaguar was killed and Trumpower was taken to hospital with non life threatening injuries: he has been charged with intoxication manslaughter. A female passenger riding in the Lincoln was taken to hospital in extremely serious condition. Police found two open liquor bottles in the Jaguar.

Read Click2Houston.com’s report here. Video from the scene of the collision is here. KHOU’s report is here.

This Lincoln MKX sustained massive rear-end damage when struck by Christopher Trumpower's Jaguar