New troopers join local state police
Additions boost local coverage to best in four years
By Elroy King
The Chronicle
With the addition of two new recruits, the Oregon State Police office in The Dalles has staffing at the highest level the local commanding officer, Lt. Pat Ashmore, has seen in the four years he’s been here.
The newest of the newcomers are Zach Bohince and Brent Ocheskey, both natives of the Hood River area. Along with the arrival of Troopers Mark Jubitz and Justin Frazier within the past year, Bohince and Ocheskey bring the local contingent to 26 and two more cadets now in the academy will be assigned here when they finish their training.
That does not yet bring The Dalles OSP office, which covers five counties and more than 800 highway miles, to the ability to patrol around the clock, seven days a week, but Ashmore said that is still the goal of the OSP statewide. One OSP office, Central Point, actually has the staffing to do that.
Bohince and Ocheskey both started the process of becoming state troopers last fall. They first attended a four-week introduction into the OSP, which included of physical fitness, military-style training and discipline, and learning about OSP history, traditions, etc. They then went through 16 weeks of added training at a police academy, the one all law enforcement officers in Oregon attend.
Since then they have been based in The Dalles, working in the field with training offices although Ocheskey has already done some solo patrols as he had eight years of law enforcement work with Intertribal Fisheries.
This week both of them left for five more weeks of post-academy training at the OSP facility in Salem, which is just for OSP officers. That training includes more instruction in all of the law the OSP is required to enforce: fish and game, traffic, commercial trucking, etc., Ashmore said.
Once they come back to the local office, both will be assigned to The Dalles office. Bohince will continue to work with a training officer for a while and both he and Ocheskey will get 40 hours of training in the criminal division and a like amount in fish and game laws.
Ocheskey grew up in the Hood River Valley and graduated from Hood River Valley High School in 1995. He was an explorer with The Dalles Police Department for a short time in 1995.
He was a reserve police officer with the Monmouth Police Department for almost two years while attending Western Oregon University and graduated from there in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement and a minor in natural science.
He started work with the Columbia River Intertribal Fisheries in August 2000 and worked as a police/fisheries enforcement officer for 8 ½ years, earning his advanced police certificate and becoming a firearms instructor among other duties.
He transferred to the state police in October of last year.
Bohince is a 2005 graduate of Hood River Valley High School, where he played lacrosse and wrestled on the high school team.
He was a district champion in the Intermountain League as a sophomore and credits the discipline he learned in that sport with helping him get through the recruit academy. He also credits his dad in that respect.
He went to Central Oregon Community College, where he received an associate’s degree in criminal justice in the winter of 2007.
With the addition of the new troopers, the local office has 12 troopers on patrol, eight in fish and game, three sergeants — one in fish and game and two on traffic patrol, a criminal detective and one drug enforcement officer. One trooper is stationed in Arlington.
The local office patrols I-84 from Milepost 40 to Milepost 146, Highways 97 and 197 from the Columbia River to Cow Canyon, Highway 26 from the Clackamas County line to the Jefferson County line, Highway 35 from Hood River to the intersection with Highway 26, Highway 216 from Wasco to Condon and Highway 19 south from Arlington as well as other places needed in the five counties, Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam and Wheeler.
The officers do traffic control, cover accidents, renter first aid and motorist assistance, handle criminal investigations and drug enforcement and “whatever else might come up,” Ashmore said.
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