About 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 19, Alaska State Troopers responded to Mile 151 of the Sterling Highway to a report of a hit-and-run accident and interviewed the complainant, Audrey Konopka.
"Upon investigating, we didn't believe her vehicle had been involved in a hit and run, but it had been in an accident by going off the road," said Sgt. Jim Hibpshman.
Trooper Tom Dunn arrested Konopka for driving under the influence of drugs, Hibpshman said, not alcohol.
"We processed her, took her car away and gave her a summons," he said. Blood work was sent to a lab for drug testing.
At 1:30 p.m. that same day, troopers received a report that a Toyota pickup truck had gone off the road at Mile 148 of the Sterling Highway.
"Well, guess who it was?" Hibpshman said. "Somehow she'd gotten her hands on another vehicle. She was still very much under the influence."
In the criminal complaint, Hibpshman said Konopka had several bottles of prescription medication with her, and admitted to smoking marijuana. She provided a blood and urine sample. An Anchor Point medic who treated Konopka at the scene said she fell down while speaking to him.
Konopka recognized Hibpshman, and remembered being arrested and having her car impounded, but said it had been four days prior and not that same morning.
"I'm not sure what type of drugs she was taking," Hibpshman said. "But I'm very comfortable saying she was very much under the influence. When the lab report comes back, we'll know what they were."
Hibpshman said he did not know where Konopka was headed.
"It was kind of hard to understand her speech," he said. Upon being taken to her jail cell, Konopka immediately fell asleep.
A 45-year-old man was charged last week with fourth-degree assault for punching someone in the face.
The victim claims that Jeff White, of Homer, was at his house when, without provocation, he approached the victim and hit him twice in the face -- once with his right fist, once with his left.
White then allegedly strangled the victim with his right arm.
White was also charged with resisting arrest and two counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief when he refused to get into the Homer Police Department patrol car upon his arrest.
In the criminal complaint, Officer Andy DeVeaux claimed that White had to be pushed to the ground and carried into the back seat with the assistance of a trooper and an off-duty Arizona police officer. When he was first approached at his apartment by troopers, he tried to close the door on them, and as they were handcuffing him, he tried to kick them, they said.
Later, he kicked out the passenger side window of the patrol car on his way to jail, according to DeVeaux and trooper Jeremy Rupe. Later still, while handcuffed to the wall bar in the booking room of the Homer Jail, White kicked two locker doors and broke the hinges, DeVeaux said.
A complete listing of all police and court activity can be found in Town Crier, Page 20.
Chris Bernard can be reached at cbernard@homernews.com.
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