18 years later, slain trooper remembered in Tri-Cities
It has been 18 years since Washington State Patrol Trooper James E. Saunders was killed during a traffic stop in Pasco.
Saunders, 31, was shot multiple times Oct. 7, 1999, after pulling over a pickup at Road 28 and Lewis Street.
The memory of his death hasn’t faded for those who knew him.
On Saturday, the Pasco Police Department and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office both recognized their fallen brother in blue in Facebook posts.
Trooper Chris Thorson, the spokesman for District 3 which covers Benton and Franklin counties, used Twitter to tell his followers that Saunders is “gone but not forgotten.”
#gonebutnotforgotten Trooper James Saunders, EOW 10/07/1999 in Pasco Wa. pic.twitter.com/9fD34LFpVP
— Trooper C. Thorson (@wspd3pio) October 7, 2017
And the Washington State Patrol’s official Twitter account asked people to “Please take a moment today to remember fallen Trooper James Saunders.”
Saunders had joined the Kennewick detachment in 1996.
A granite slab engraved with Saunders’ likeness sits in front of the Hillcrest-Bruce Lee Memorial Center in Pasco, just a few feet from the location of the traffic stop.
When Saunders was shot to death, he had a 2-year-old daughter, Megan, and his wife Billie was pregnant with their second child. They didn’t yet know they were having a son. Jim Jr. was born 4 1/2 months later.
Please take a moment today to remember fallen Trooper James Saunders EOW 10/07/1999. #GoneButNeverForgotten pic.twitter.com/5DMrphyxEQ
— WA State Patrol (@wastatepatrol) October 7, 2017
Nicolas Solorio Vasquez, now 46, is locked up in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
A Mexican national, he was a convicted drug dealer who had been deported from the United States three times before he gunned down Saunders.
He pleaded guilty in August 2001 to aggravated first-degree murder, a move that helped him avoid the death penalty and spared Saunders’ family from a long, emotional trial.
Months later, Vasquez filed paperwork seeking a return to his home country to serve his life sentence. A top official with Seattle’s Mexican Consulate said at the time that Vasquez wasn’t eligible for transfer because no equivalent sentence exists in Mexico.
This story was originally published October 7, 2017 at 3:55 PM with the headline "18 years later, slain trooper remembered in Tri-Cities."