Retired Nevada State Trooper Steve Raabe’s latest book, Patrolling the Heart of the Silver State, is a collection of stories about patrolling, investigating and administering some of the most desolate and dangerous highways in the West.
The book is a follow-up to Raabe’s Patrolling the Heart of the West, published in 2018. Since then, animosity toward law enforcement officers has increased. Raabe’s answer: frank stories about competent, ethical, courageous officers and the roles they play in our society.
In Patrolling the Heart of the Silver State, Raabe details a fatal shootout, a revenge bombing and deadly car crashes while also providing fresh insights into law enforcement practices such as accident reconstruction, speed detection with radar and airplanes, seatbelt laws and hiring practices.
Raabe grew up in Fallon and Carson City, where he raised animals and competed in rodeos. For decades, he served as a state trooper, sergeant, lieutenant and traffic accident reconstruction expert, working all across Northern Nevada. Today, Raabe and his wife Janelle, live in Sparks and spend winters in Yuma, Arizona.
Steve Raabe’s next book signing is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, at Barnes & Noble, 5555 S. Virginia St., in Reno.
Excerpt from ‘Patrolling the Heart of the Silver State’
Let’s Take the Back Roads
As the morning sun rose high enough in the sky to begin to reveal the details of a new day, something caught the eye of a commercial truck driver. The driver was eastbound, on Interstate 80, in northeastern Nevada, crossing the river bridge and approaching the Carlin Tunnels. The Carlin Tunnels were drilled through solid rock so traffic could pass directly through a mountain, rather than follow the old highway route that twisted and turned along the banks of the Humboldt River. It was March 17, 2001,and as the truck driver crossed the bridge and looked down towards the river, he spotted what appeared to be the body of a man wedged between two rocks on the rivers edge. This sighting began the investigation of a fatal traffic accident which had resulted in the death of two brothers.
The Sunday house warming party, at the brother’s friends new house in Carlin, Nevada, started at 3:00 pm and ended around 10:30 pm. With plenty of food and alcohol present, everyone had a wonderful time, but now the intoxicated participants were faced with a very common problem, what to do next. Do they stay the night? Do they get picked up by someone sober? Did they think ahead and plan for a designated driver? Or, like most intoxicated human beings, did their ability to reason and make good decisions disappear as their blood alcohol level increased and they thought they could make it home? Unfortunately, for these two brothers they chose the latter.
The discussion at the end of the party, by those still present, was that the brothers should spend the night. Someone actually tried to take the keys to the brothers pickup, but that almost ended in a fight. In their drunken condition, the brothers decided to drive home, but as intoxicated as they were they had come up with a plan to not get caught. They decided to take old US40 back to their home in Elko, rather than the much busier and more often patrolled Interstate 80.
Old US 40, also known as the Lincoln Highway, was America’s first national memorial to President Abraham Lincoln. It was one of the first, if not the first, transcontinental highways built for automobiles. US40 was dedicated on October 31, (Nevada Day) 1913, and ran from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. In the 1970’s, US40 was replaced by Interstate 80, a much more modern highway, which paralleled much of US40 through northern Nevada. Parts of old US40 across Nevada became secondary highways and Interstate frontage roads, while the rest of it was removed.
The portion of US 40 (also known as Chestnut Street), which the brothers attempted to take home, runs east from Carlin to Elko. It is a two lane, two- directional highway that runs straight for several miles, then it makes a sharp ninety degree turn to the left following a tight bend in the Humboldt River. The highway then passes under both separate bridges of eastbound and westbound Interstate 80, which span the Humboldt River, just prior to entering the Carlin Tunnels. The sharp turn in the highway was well marked with a warning sign showing the upcoming sharp turn and suggested lower speed limit. The south roadway edge was bordered by a steel guard rail and a barbed wire fence around the tight curve. The beginning of this sharp turn is where the accident began.