By Eric Francis
Standard Correspondent
BETHEL – An Army National Guardsman who was supposed to be under house arrest while waiting to resolve several outstanding criminal charges allegedly blew past a state police cruiser at 83 mph late Saturday evening, touching off a brief pursuit that resulted in his arrest the next day.
Kyle Ketner, 20, of East Bethel appeared in handcuffs in Windsor District Court in downtown White River Junction where he pleaded innocent to misdemeanor counts of reckless operation of a vehicle, excessive speed, attempting to elude a law enforcement officer, violating court-ordered conditions of pre-trial release, and knowingly giving false information to police.
Trooper Richard Slusser wrote in an affidavit filed with the court that he was headed north on the Pleasant Street stretch of Route 12 in Bethel at 10 p.m. Saturday night when suddenly he had two sets of headlights coming at him side-by-side in a no-passing zone.
“I pulled my cruiser to the right side of the road so as not to have a head-on collision,” Slusser recalled, adding that he was able to clearly see that it was a black Dodge Charger doing the passing at “an extremely high rate of speed.”
Slusser was able to see the first three letters of the license plate as the Charger downshifted and roared away. The trooper turned around and hit his lights and siren but after a quarter mile the car was out of sight and Slusser wrote he decided to end the pursuit “due to safety concerns for the people of Bethel Village.”
Since the car and the partial plate appeared to be a match with East Bethel resident Kyle Ketner, three troopers went straight to Ketner’s house where his father told them that Ketner was not at home despite a court order that he remain there at all times with the only exceptions being for verifiable employment and National Guard service purposes while his cases are pending.
Trooper Slusser said that on Sunday he spoke with Ryan Litchfield, 20, of Bethel who said he had been Ketner’s passenger the night before.
“Litchfield advised that when the defendant saw my cruiser (Ketner) said “Oh S***!” and hit the gas,” Slusser wrote, continuing that Litchfield had explained that he wanted to get out of the vehicle but when Ketner pulled onto a VAST snowmobile trail and the cruiser continued past, the pair decided to head back the other way and ended up going to a party in the Rochester area.
Kyle Ketner pleaded innocent in October of last year to felony charges of burglary and grand larceny after he was implicated in the theft of a half-dozen brand new snowmobiles from Lucky’s Trailer Sales in Royalton in December of 2008. Police allege that Ketner was one of at least three men who participated in taking a truck full of snow machines late one night and then joyriding them around the Randolph area for the remainder of that winter season.
Ketner was arrested again this February and charged with grossly negligent operation after he was caught speeding, allegedly in excess of 100 mph and he was still out on pre-trial conditions in March when he was arrested again after state police received a report of drag-racing taking place on the Beanville Road in Randolph.
Vermont State Police Sgt. Craig Gardner said he immediately suspected Ketner after he heard that a black Charger had been racing a Toyota with a rear spoiler because “I have heard (several) complaints of this (Charger) racing around the Randolph area.” Police were not able to charge Ketner in connection with thedrag-race but did charge him with violating his 24-hour curfew after he told them he had been out getting food and dropping friends off places as an alibi for the time period when the drag-race had taken place.
During Monday’s arraignment, Acting Judge Fred Glover imposed $10,000 bail and ordered Ketner only to be released into the custody of his father, Brent, who promised to report any further curfew violations directly to the police.
Kyle Ketner’s court-appointed public defender, attorney Jordana Levine, told Glover that as a member of the National Guard Ketner “is expecting to deploy (overseas) at some point in the future, pending resolution of these cases.”
Loading ...
{ 3 comments }
Thanks tom, you are correct. Vermont state police have never been able to prove who has been driving my car. But I do know that the state police put the civilians life in jeopardy all the time by traveling over 100 mph in 50 mph zones.
If I read the report right the police couldn’t catch him to prove it was him behind the wheel………. also, there is an ongoing despute between ketner and some of the officers.
For the record. What this man was doing is called “street racing” and not drag racing. A drag race is done on a sanctioned race track where it is safe. A street race is done on the street where it is not.