MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — State troopers had to break a vehicle’s window Wednesday afternoon to get to a driver who locked himself in and refused to cooperate.
A Washington State Patrol trooper just before 1 p.m. noticed a driver not wearing a seat belt and stopped the vehicle southbound on Ballinger Way east of I-5, trooper Keith Leary said.
The driver, a 45-year-old Olympia man, first refused to provide identification. He called himself a “constitutionalist” and challenged the trooper’s legal authority.
The man was driving with a suspended license.
The driver locked his car doors and rolled up his windows.
Backup was called after the driver repeatedly failed to obey the trooper’s commands.
Troopers broke out the car’s window and used an electric shock stun gun to subdue the driver, Leary said.
“This is what makes our job very dangerous,” Leary said. “We never know what we are going to encounter.”
The man was expected to be booked into the Snohomish County Jail.
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