No Slammer for Slemmer: Troopers Too Busy to Make Arrest

Leah Slemmer knows from breaking the law. She’s been arrested nearly as many times (49) as years she’s blessed the planet with her presence (54). On Wednesday, she failed to reach the half-century mark (unless the Times’ curiously incongruous story is accurate) when a state trooper was too busy to drag her sorry ass to jail.

KOMO.com reports:

State patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill said that when Slemmer was stopped Wednesday evening on Interstate 405 near the SR 520 interchange, she admitted to the trooper that her license was suspended and that she was "having a bad day."

… Merrill said that due to the volume of calls at the time Slemmer was stopped on Wednesday she was cited but not booked into jail."

Slemmer’s rap sheet boasts five convictions for driving without a valid license, eight for driving with a suspended license, and four DUIs. She’s also been arrested for “robbery, assault, and theft.” Merrill even admits that Slemmer “is a career criminal.” But, as this story cites, Slemmer was released because "troopers were too busy at the time she was pulled over." The P-I puts it this way: State patrol "didn’t have a trooper to take her to jail."

WTF? A trooper (who isn’t named) had enough time to notice Slemmer wasn’t wearing her seat belt, enough time to pull her over for it, and enough time to cite her for a) the missing seatbelt and b) a missing "ignition interlock device." But there wasn’t enough time to make the roads a bit safer for other drivers by locking her up (again). We’re no criminal justice expert, but don’t cop cars have back seats and locking rear doors? Why not just throw the woman back there until there’s enough time and/or troopers to complete an arrest?

Fortunately Slemmer’s "bad day" wasn’t capped off by her killing someone on the road. But thanks to our apparently overburdened state patrol, she’s been given another chance to do just that.