A Vancouver woman who rammed a sheriff’s patrol car while trying to escape arrest was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison. Her attorney argued the prison sentence will do nothing to help her mental health issues.
Angela M. McCalip, 45, pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court to attempting to elude police and third-degree assault stemming from the May 20 incident.
She was facing charges of second-degree assault, attempting to elude, first-degree malicious mischief and possession of a controlled substance, but those charges were either amended or dismissed as part of a plea deal.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Clark County sheriff’s Deputy Phil Walker stopped a Chevrolet pickup for an obstructed license plate at about 10:30 p.m. in the 12300 block of Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard. The driver and lone occupant, identified as McCalip, told the deputy her driver’s license was suspended and that she had an outstanding warrant for her arrest.
While Walker contacted another officer, McCalip drove away heading south on Northeast 123rd Avenue, the affidavit said. Walker said he knew it was a dead-end street and assumed McCalip was going to leave the vehicle and run. He turned into the neighborhood and deactivated his overhead emergency lights, court records said.
However, he then saw McCalip had turned the pickup around and was traveling toward him without the vehicle’s lights on. Walker said he gave McCalip an escape route to avoid a collision, but she rammed into the passenger’s side of his patrol vehicle, according to court documents.
McCalip then fled east on Fourth Plain Boulevard, the affidavit said.
Walker was not seriously injured, but his car was disabled.
Other deputies responded and found McCalip’s truck in the 7500 block of Northeast Meadows Drive, where they subsequently arrested her.
During the hearing, McCalip’s defense attorney, Bob Yoseph, argued that McCalip was not trying to assault Walker, and that if anything, she should have been charged with hit-and-run, not assault.
Yoseph said anyone who looks at McCalip’s extensive criminal history could see she “is a seriously mentally ill defendant.” She’s previously undergone a psychological evaluation, he said, and has received mental health treatment. Yoseph said McCalip has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder, and takes medications to manage her illnesses.
“Are we going to warehouse another seriously mentally ill offender?” Yoseph asked Judge Derek Vanderwood. He added that a drug-offender sentencing alternative would be a better fit.
Deputy Prosecutor James Smith argued that McCalip has had opportunities to get help but hasn’t always taken advantage of them.
Because McCalip faced substantially less time with the amended charges, Vanderwood opted to sentence her to the attorneys’ previously agreed-upon sentence of 60 months. However, he ordered that McCalip does not have to pay any restitution.
