In Loving Memory of Jonathan Howard Kamp

 Jeff Wiehe/ The Journal Gazette ( Ft. Wayne) 10/15/09

    Christine Jones brought pictures of the crash scene, even the ones showing her son’s covered body lying in the wreckage.

 Meeting with a group of police officers from several departments before they were to conduct a drunken driving checkpoint in Rochester at the beginning of this month, Jones said they were her heroes. She said their job of keeping drunken drivers off the roads was an important one, and to drive home her point, she asked them to look at her pictures.                               

 That was her son, she said, killed by a drunken driver on a Kosciusko County road in 2007.

 “I wanted them to know, ‘Here’s what it does!’ ” said Jones, who lives in Rochester, where her son grew up. “I don’t want to hide anything. I think it made them understand that this is a personal thing.”

 For Jones, the loss of her 28-year-old son nearly two years ago sparked in her a crusade of activism.

 She has given presentations about her experience and has helped her daughter maintain a Web site dedicated to her son. She and others were successful in getting anti-drunken driving signs posted in Rochester in memory of her son, and she’s helped lobby for a new drunken driving law in the state. She also plans to start a Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter soon in Fulton County.

 But for her to get to this point was a long road, including a seven-month span after the night of Nov. 30, 2007, that left her in a fog that sometimes seemed too hard to cut through.

The crash

 With the last trailer load of his belongings hitched to the back of his truck, Kamp was driving south on Kosciusko County Road 1000 West with a passenger about 11:30 p.m. He was on his way to Akron, Indiana, where he was moving.

 At the same time, 45-year-old Leonard F. Williams was driving a Chevy Blazer west on County Road 700. Williams, who had three previous drunken driving-related convictions and was on probation for another offense, blew through a stop sign and collided with the driver’s side of Kamp’s truck.

 Kamp was partly ejected from the vehicle, Jones said, with his passenger landing on him. Two people following Kamp checked his pulse and found it weak. Then they lifted the passenger off. After that, Kamp’s pulse was gone, Jones said. He died at the scene.

 Others involved suffered serious injuries, including passengers in Williams’ car.

 “Can you imagine that?” Jones said. “It was out in nowhere; I mean, this little intersection with a two-way stop. My son was going 35 mph.”

 Williams fled the scene on foot and later told officers he was not the driver of the Blazer. He was ultimately arrested on a slew of charges and convicted of his fourth drunken driving offense. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, a sentence he unsuccessfully appealed in April.

The phone call came from a woman Jones didn’t know.

 At the time, Jones, who is divorced from Kamp’s father, was living in Florida. It was midnight and the call woke her up. The woman on the line said her son had been killed in Indiana. Jones thought it was a joke.

 “I really thought she was kidding,” Jones said. “It was the most awful thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life. Losing a child should never be something somebody goes through, for whatever reason.”

 Jones can’t recall what she did for the next seven months. She had to be back at work within two weeks of her son’s death but can’t say how she functioned. At night she would go home, lie in her bed and turn on her computer. She began reading about how to deal with grief and began searching for others like herself.

 “You need to find out if your feelings are normal and attach yourself to people going through the same thing,” she said.

 Jones met with support groups she found through Compassionate Friends, a national self-help support organization, and with groups she found through MADD. These groups offered her access to other people going through the same pain she was.

 She spoke with others about the depression that sneaks up on her at a moment’s notice, even to this day. Others had the same memory loss; normal, she said, for those who go through traumatic stress. Others also had trouble sleeping and had the same thoughts of suicide.

 “The pain is so real. I never thought of suicide before my son died. After that, yes, you think of suicide, and yes, it is normal,” she said. “That’s just some of the effects of losing a child.”

 Jones also said God helped her through the pain, and she now shares ways to keep her son’s memory alive.

 Her daughter, Jada Hooker, created the Web site http://www.jonathanhowardkamp.com/, which offers stories about Kamp, stories about the family’s struggles and pictures. Jones never liked tattoos but now has two featuring her son – one on her ankle, the other on her back. Jones and her daughter also took possession of Kamp’s prized 2001 XL Harley-Davidson Sportster, which they had customized so they can ride it – something they do often.

 And after Williams’ sentencing, Jones began speaking at victim-impact panels for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. These panels allow victims and families of victims of drunken driving to speak to first-time offenders in person.

 At one point in the past year, she went to Indianapolis to help lobby for a law that would have introduced ignition interlocks designed to keep people whose blood-alcohol level is too high from starting their cars. The bill ultimately failed.

Police see the effect drunken driving has on the victims all the time, said Sgt. Tony Slocum of the Indiana State Police Post in Peru.

 Officers go to people’s homes to give them death notices, they’re at the crash scenes and they do the investigations.

 But to see the pain in a woman nearly two years removed from losing her son to a drunken driver – like what state police troopers and Fulton County sheriff’s officers saw in Jones during her visit – was powerful.

 "It’s always a big deal,” Slocum said. “It just emphasizes that this is important.”

 Police made contact with 134 drivers during their checkpoints the night Jones spoke to them, arresting one man on charges of operating while intoxicated and being a minor having consumed alcohol, Slocum said. He said Jones’ visit was also good to see because the police receive flak from bar owners in Rochester.

 “They think we cut down on their business,” he said.

 For people who complain about police looking for drunken drivers or doing patrols on weekend nights, Jones said she would tell those people of her devastating loss, of everything that accompanies a death that nobody thinks about – handling the funeral, handling the estate – and feels they might think differently.

 “If the police receive flak, I’ll talk to any one of those people,” she said.

 At a glance

•Fort Wayne had 599 drivers involved in alcohol-related collisions in 2008, of which 227 had a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher.

•In Indiana in 2008, there were 12,449 drivers involved in alcohol-related collisions. Of those, 3,411 had a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher.

•In 2007, Indiana had 230 deaths related to drunken driving, down 6.1 percent from 2006

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FROM THE INDIANA STATE POLICE/ Tony Slocum/ October 6, 2009

Rochester – This past weekend, the Indiana State Police in conjunction with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department and the Rochester Police Department conducted a driving while under the influence checkpoint in Rochester. Christine Jones, whose son Jonathan Howard Kamp, was killed by an intoxicated driver in a Kosciusko County crash in November of 2007, was at the briefing for the checkpoint.

 She spoke to officers and showed pictures of the senseless crash that took the life of her son. She wanted to emphasize to the officers how important the job of removing impaired drivers from Indiana roadways was. She thanked the officers for trying to stop drunk drivers before they cause endless pain and suffering to another innocent family. According to Jones, Kamp was killed when Leonard F. Williams ran a stop sign hitting the pickup truck, Kamp was driving. Williams fled the scene and was later captured.  An investigation revealed he was intoxicated at the time of the crash. He is currently serving a 25 year sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction. He pled guilty to operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing death and other charges related to the crash.

 Jones not only wants to help police understand what they are doing is appreciated and important, she would like to educate the motoring public on the suffering caused when an impaired driver unnecessarily takes the life of  an innocent victim.  In the future, she plans to start a Fulton County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  At this time, there is a website started by Kamp’s youngest sister at http://www.jonathanhowardkamp.com/ . The site is dedicated to Kamp’s memory and educating the public on the senseless pain caused when a person is killed by an intoxicated driver. Jones said she is available with anyone wanting more information on what impact the senseless death of her son has on her and her family. She is also willing to speak with and offer support to others who have lost loved ones in a crash caused by an impaired driver.

 Friday night, during the two hour checkpoint, officers had contact with 134 drivers. A 19-year-old Rochester, IN, man was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and being a minor having consumed alcohol.

 “Checkpoints serve two purposes,” stated Lieutenant Matt Bilkey, commander of the Indiana State Police Peru Post. “First and foremost is to remove impaired drivers from Indiana roadways. The second is to advertise to the motoring public that law enforcement is actively seeking to arrest those few individuals that choose to drive impaired. Through this, we hope to deter anyone from operating a vehicle while intoxicated.”

 The Indiana State Police is committed to removing impaired drivers from Indiana roadways. Officers will utilize checkpoints and saturation patrols to accomplish this mission. Citizens are encouraged to report suspected impaired drivers by calling 911. Never allow a friend or family member to drive impaired.

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By Richard Gootee / Indianapolis Star staff

The national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving came to Indianapolis on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to approve mandatory ignition interlock devices for anyone caught driving drunk.

Laura Dean-Mooney's plea came the day after the House Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would force second-time offenders to have an ignition interlock for six months.

An ignition interlock prevents a vehicle from starting until the driver blows into a small tube that records that person's blood-alcohol level. If the reading is higher than 0.03, the vehicle won't start.

Though Dean-Mooney praised House Bill 1020 as a starting point, she said she hoped it would be amended to include first-time offenders.

"(A first-time offender) had 87 chances (on average) to kill or injure . . . before they were caught the first time," Dean-Mooney said.

In 2007, 230 people in the state were killed by drunken drivers, she said. In Indiana, a driver with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 or higher is considered to be driving under the influence.

AAA Hoosier Motor Club spokesman Greg Seiter said that organization supports the use of ignition interlocks and that 88 percent of its members in a recent survey agreed.

"We do not believe that driver-license suspension alone will prevent convicted drunk drivers from continuing to drive," Seiter said. "However, ignition interlocks will ensure that the drivers are at least sober when they get behind the wheel."

Dean-Mooney tried to dispel some of the perceived problems with the devices, including cost, effectiveness and intrusiveness. She called the devices "a virtual probation officer in the front seat."

Dean-Mooney said the proposal in its current form still wouldn't put Indiana among states with the toughest ignition interlock laws. Seven states require the devices for first-time offenders, while six others require them if an offender has a blood-alcohol level higher than 0.15, she said.

"If we do what we have always done, we are going to get what we always got: unnecessary death and injury," Dean-Mooney said.

HB 1020 would let a judge decide whether a first-time offender should have to install the device.

Next, the measure goes to the full House for a vote.

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HOW THEY WORK

Dan Towery, supplier of Smart Start ignition locks and owner of S&C Ignition Interlock in Lafayette, demonstrated how to use a Smart Start ignition lock outside the Statehouse on Wednesday.

» The device costs about $70 to install and about $70 to remove. Towery also charges $95 per month to lease the device.

» If a driver's blood-alcohol content is higher than 0.03, the vehicle won't start and records a violation.

» The device won't record a reading lower than 0.015.

» The device is installed by routing the starter wire through a relay box that won't close until the driver registers a successful test.

» Taking the test requires the driver to deliver a three-second blow followed by a three-second hum.

» Smart Starts require a random test within 15 minutes after the vehicle is started and every 45 minutes it remains running. Drivers are given six minutes to pass the subsequent tests.

» The driver's blood-alcohol content is not shown on the device.

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