Washington State Trooper killed in Tacoma, search underway for second vehicle involved in crash

People at the scene rendered aid, but Trooper Guting later succumbed to her injuries. The Tacoma Police Department is leading the investigation into the incident. Tacoma police, who were overseeing the investigation, reported the driver who initially hit Guting stayed at the scene and has been in contact with law enforcement. No arrests were made.

However, on Sunday, police said they were searching for a second vehicle that struck Guting between 7:20 and 7:30 pm, after she was thrown into a lane of traffic. Police said that the second vehicle did not stop and described it as a dark, possibly black, four-door pickup truck believed to be either a Chevrolet Avalanche or a Cadillac Escalade EXT-style pickup. No license plate information was available. Investigators are urging anyone who witnessed the collision, saw the vehicle, or has dashcam footage from the area during that time window to contact 1-800-222-TIPS.

Trooper Guting, 29, began her career with the Washington State Patrol as a trooper cadet in January 2024. She graduated with the 119th Trooper Basic Training Class and was commissioned on Oct. 30 of that same year. She is survived by her husband, Timothy, who works as a Deputy State Fire Marshal at the WSP Fire Training Academy in North Bend. She enlisted in the Army National Guard on Oct. 22, 2014, serving honorably as a Signal Intelligence Analyst until Oct. 21, 2022.

WSP Chief John R. Batiste said, “My heartfelt condolences go out to Timothy, Tara’s extended family, her friends, her academy classmates, to District 1 Captain Gundermann, and his entire team.”

“The sky has poured rain on us all for the past two weeks… And with this loss, now tears flood our souls.”

Trooper Guting’s death came amid a slew of recent incidents involving troopers being hit while working on Washington roadways. WSP said a trooper was struck Sunday morning in Pierce County while responding to a call, marking the fifth incident involving a state trooper this week. The trooper was assisting with a disabled vehicle blocking the roadway on westbound State Route 512 near Canyon Road when he was hit by another vehicle. He was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Other incidents reported since Wednesday include a crash in Kittitas County in which an 86-year-old man slammed into the back of a trooper’s SUV, and a collision in Lakewood where a pickup driver suspected of texting while driving struck a trooper’s patrol car. In another case, a trooper was hit on Dec. 19 while working a collision on eastbound I-90 at milepost 50 during winter weather conditions. In each of those incidents, troopers were reported to have sustained minor, non-life-threatening injuries. Earlier this month, on Dec. 8, a WSP cadet on a coaching trip was at the scene of a vehicle that had gone into a ditch when their patrol car was struck by another vehicle. Luckily, that trooper was not injured.

Earlier this summer, an illegal immigrant was convicted in the March 2024 death of Washington State Patrol Trooper Christopher Gadd and was sentenced to more than a decade in prison. Raul Benitez-Santana, 33, was sentenced in July to 125 months in prison and 18 months of community custody after being convicted of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault.