Police: Driver was high, doing 60 as he plowed into Kennewick intersection injuring couple

A Kennewick man is accused of speeding when he tore through an intersection on a red light, smashing into a car and wrapping his own truck around a pole.

Jared D. Schab, 30, told Kennewick police at the hospital that he had taken synthetic opioids in the prior day or two.

A search of Schab’s smashed truck turned up a glass pipe with methamphetamine residue and other drug paraphernalia, according to court documents.

Schab was just charged last week with severely injuring the couple in the other car because officers had trouble finding him after that September wreck.

Then, early Sunday, a Benton County sheriff’s deputy stopped a car for a defective license plate lamp and rear brake light and discovered Schab was behind the wheel.

He was arrested on the crash charges, and picked up a new case for having a bag with meth residue inside his pant’s pocket, documents said.

Schab is locked up on $25,000 bail for possession of meth and two counts of vehicular assault while under the influence. That is from the earlier case.

His newer case is for another charge of possessing meth.

Court documents show that on Sept. 18, Schab was driving south on Morain Street and approaching a red light at Fourth Avenue.

But instead of stopping with other traffic, Schab sped up, swerved into the designated left-turn lane to get around a stopped vehicle and drove into the intersection, documents said.

He allegedly was going 63-64 mph when he hit a sedan that was in the Fourth Avenue intersection on a green light. The speed limit on Morain is 30 mph.

Investigators used the event data recorder from Schab’s pickup and video footage of the crash, along with collision reconstruction reports, to determine what happened.

Schab reportedly kept his foot on the gas pedal up until the moment of impact with the car driven by Richard Szempruch.

Schab was still inside his truck when police arrived. He was taken to the hospital with a broken jaw and broken nose.

Officers at the hospital noticed Schab had “very slow and deliberate speech” like he was half asleep and his movement was very lethargic, court documents said.

He denied drinking any alcohol, but talked about taking the pills laced with fentanyl, or “Mexis,” the day or two before. Police got a warrant to test his blood.

Along with the glass pipe in the driver’s side door of Schab’s truck, officers found used syringes and a dish with a drug residue in a backpack and 47 rounds of ammunition in the glove box, documents said.

Schab has two prior felony drug convictions and a violation while on community service.

Szempruch suffered seven broken ribs, a lung injury, multiple broken vertebrae and broken bones in his left arm and leg.

His wife, Marie Szempruch, also had six broken ribs, documents said.

This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 12:53 PM.