At 4 a.m. on July 10, Washington State Patrol communications received a 911 call from a witness who’d seen a man throwing debris onto westbound 1-90 near Rainier Avenue from behind a fence along the freeway. Troopers responded to the area, and with the witness’ help, found and then arrested the suspect as he was walking along Rainier Avenue.

According to the WSP, the suspect refused to provide his personal information, but was later identified as 35-year-old Nicholas Ryan Souse. Because he had ingested heroin before his arrest, according to the WSP, Mr. Souse was first transported to Harborview Medical Center, and once he’d been medically cleared, police booked him into jail for investigation of reckless endangerment, 3rd-degree malicious mischief, and 2nd-degree criminal trespassing. Fortunately, no vehicles were struck by debris during the incident.

In addition to the foregoing incident, two others had been reported earlier the same morning. The first was at 3 a.m. in the same area of Rainier, during which witnesses reported seeing a suspect wearing a tan hat, a black jacket and a headlamp throwing debris onto I-90. No vehicles were hit, and troopers immediately responded to the area but could not find the suspect.

The second incident occurred just before 4 a.m. in the same area on westbound -90 near Rainier, where a victim reported that an individual pushing a shopping cart in lane 1 had thrown a rock that came through his windshield, but without injuring the driver. The suspect could not be found.

Year to date in King County, the WSP has logged 161 reports of rocks being thrown, a number that includes all of the freeways patrolled by troopers. Of the 161, 44 have been coded as coming from an overpass, leaving the remaining 117 as incidents involving rock-debris thrown from the side of the freeway.