By GREG TUTTLE
Of The Gazette Staff

Dwayne and Darla Greenig stood in the cold rain on the side of the highway near their Rockvale house recently as a procession of hundreds of police vehicles passed by. Seven months earlier, the couple had been part of a similar somber procession as their son, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Greenig, was buried with honors at the Laurel Cemetery.

Dwayne Greenig said he was overwhelmed at the sight of the patrol vehicles participating in the funeral procession for Yellowstone County Sheriff's Deputy David Briese, who, like Greenig's son, died in a motor vehicle accident while on duty.

"As painful as it was to stand there and see that same procession, it was also gratifying to see the same kind of support from the community," Greenig said. "It gave us some peace."

It has been a deadly year on the roads for law enforcement officers from the Billings area.

Greenig, 28, died March 14 while on patrol duty near Ajo, Ariz. A senior agent who attended schools in Laurel and Billings, Greenig joined the Border Patrol in 2002 after graduating with honors from Utah Valley State College in Provo. He was assigned to a special unit that often worked undercover targeting violent criminal gangs involved in smuggling people and drugs.

Greenig died when his patrol vehicle hit a free-range bull while he was pursuing a suspect at high speed his father said. Greenig was driving and he was wearing a seat belt but the bull crushed the roof of the vehicle over the driver's side. Greenig's partner, seated next to him, survived.

"I can tell you it's enormously dangerous down there," Dwayne Greenig said.

On Oct. 22, West Yellowstone Police Officer and 1995 Skyview graduate Patrick Kramer died when his patrol vehicle hit a patch of ice on U.S. Highway 20 and rolled. Kramer, 29, was responding to a report of a vehicle accident with people trapped in an SUV. He was not wearing a seat belt, which was described as an oversight by Police Chief Gordon Berger.

Just 12 days later, on Nov. 3, Briese died when he lost control of his patrol car on Interstate 90 while responding to a call for backup from another deputy who had stopped a drunken-driving suspect.

Briese, 38, was a well-liked law enforcement veteran who spent five years as a detention officer at the Yellowstone County jail and one year as a deputy sheriff in Big Horn County before joining the local Sheriff's Office in 2001. About 1,200 people, including law enforcement officers from as far away as Canada and Minnesota, attended his memorial service at the MetraPark Expo Center. About 300 law enforcement vehicles joined the motorcade from Billings to the Rockvale Cemetery, where Briese was buried with honors.

Investigators with the Montana Highway Patrol said Briese's patrol car was going about 110 mph when he apparently swerved to avoid merging traffic at the King Avenue West on-ramp. He was not wearing a seat belt when the car went off the highway, through a fence and struck a large metal sign post, investigators said.

Even if Briese had been wearing a seat belt, he might not have survived the crash, said MHP Capt. Keith Edgell, who investigated the accident.

Before these three deaths, the last officer from this area killed while on duty was Billings Police Officer Alex Mavity, who died Feb. 14, 1989, when he was shot by a suspect during a struggle for his gun.

The recent deaths of these officers in motor-vehicle accidents are not only tragic, but they also reflect the second-most-deadly hazard to law enforcement officers across the country.

According to a national survey, motor vehicle accidents follow shooting deaths as the most common cause of on-duty deaths for police officers.

During the first six months of this year, 75 law enforcement officers were killed, according to the survey done by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Thirty officers were shot to death, while 22 died in motor vehicle accidents, according to the survey. Eleven died from job-related illnesses, and five officers were killed when struck by automobiles while outside their vehicles. Four officers died in motorcycle accidents, while two officers were killed in helicopter crashes and one officer died in a bomb blast.

The survey notes that the number of law enforcement officers killed in automobile crashes has increased by 40 percent over the past 30 years, and by 22 percent in the past year.

In 2005, 155 officers died while on duty, with traffic-related incidents accounting for 63 of those deaths, or 41 percent, the law enforcement organization reports.

For the past eight years, the number of officers killed in traffic-related incidents of all kinds has surpassed the number of officers killed in shootings, said Craig Floyd, the organization's chairman.

The numbers don't surprise Billings Police Chief Rich St. John, who described traffic accidents as a risk inherent in police work.

"The highest liability that a police officer and police department has is the operation of our patrol cars," St. John said.

As a result, the BPD requires officers to participate in annual driving-skills training, he said. Last year, the department set up the training course at the MetraPark parking lot when snow and ice were on the ground.

When accidents occur involving city officers, a review board is convened to examine the incident, St. John said. Although the department has had some minor accidents in recent years, none has resulted in serious or fatal injuries, he said.

Ladd Paulson was the last city officer seriously injured in a vehicle accident. His police motorcycle was struck by a car in July 2002. He later accepted a medical retirement from the department.

St. John said safe driving under the sometimes extreme requirements of police work is an important goal.

"We don't want our people becoming part of the problem," St. John said. "We tell them you're not going to help anybody if you don't get there. We want our people to be prudent, be safe, use good judgment and not cause more of a problem."
 

Published on Saturday, November 25, 2006.