By Marcus Hathcock
Dale lee Reed
Contributed photo
An Eagle Creek man was arrested last week for allegedly shooting several shotgun rounds during a drunken ride in the Boring area, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.
Dale Lee Reed, 38, of Weitz Lane, faces charges of driving under the influence of intoxicants, two counts of menacing, a count of burglary and a count of being an ex-convict in possession of a firearm.
Sheriff’s office reports state that Reed stole his father’s shotgun from his parents’ house. He then loaded it and drove around with the gun in his lap while under the influence of alcohol.
Reed’s father, Donnie Reed, told The Post that his son had likely become drunk from whisky after fighting with his girlfriend, Candace.
“He was not in a very good state of mind, I guess,” Donnie said, noting that his son had “kept pretty straight for six, eight years.”
Donnie told police that his son kept asking Donnie’s wife, Emily, for Donnie’s shotgun early in the evening Wednesday, May 30. Emily reportedly tried to keep her son from the weapon, but Reed pushed her aside and grabbed the gun. He then took a bag of shotgun shells from another relative’s motor home and left.
“I don’t even know really why he took (the shotgun),” Donnie said, “unless he was just being drunk.”
Reed, who is prescribed Prozac and is a construction worker, called Candace several times soon after, and told her he was coming to her house.
“I told Emily to call the cops when I got home because she was telling me how he was drunked up, hollering, yelling and screaming,” Donnie recalled.
Reed’s parents told police they believed Reed wanted to harm — maybe even kill — Candace.
Cousin Donald Wilson, told sheriff’s Sgt. Matt Ellington that Reed had been at his Amissigger Road home just before 8 p.m. that evening and had fired the shotgun near his house, where five children were inside. (Sheriff’s deputies later found a spent shotgun shell at the scene.) The family made him leave.
Donnie Reed said his son returned to their home in Eagle Creek “really out of it.” He asked his father where Candace was, while holding the shotgun on his lap in the Explorer.
Donnie tried to grab the shotgun, but Reed pulled it back and drove away.
Not long after, Cheryl Davis and her daughter, Clarissa, were driving north on Amissigger Road when they spotted a Ford Explorer following them closely behind. On a steep and curvy part of the road, the Explorer — later identified as Reed’s — got within a car-length of the Davis’ vehicle and started driving “erratically.”
Davis said when she reached the top of a hill, she expected Reed to pass her, but he didn’t. Instead, the women heard a loud bang behind them.
They saw what they believed to be a shotgun barrel sticking out of the driver’s side window.
“I think he may have shot at us,” recalled Clarissa Davis.
Afraid for her life, Cheryl Davis turned into the Mountain View Golf Course parking lot, “hoping there would be people there,” she later told police. She called 9-1-1.
Reed drove off, and after more than an hour of searching, police located Reed while he was driving back to his uncle’s house on Amissigger. He was arrested with the loaded shotgun in the vehicle. After he was taken to jail, Reed failed a Breathalyzer test, registering 0.13 percent blood alcohol content. He was lodged at the Clackamas County Jail in Oregon City.
When police asked Donnie if he wanted to press charges for Dale taking his shotgun, Donnie reportedly said, “Hell, yes.” He said he normally has a good relationship with his son, but in this case, the police needed to take him away.
Reed — who has had previous convictions, including driving while intoxicated, felony possession of a firearm, forgery, providing false information to police, third degree robbery and possession of a controlled substance — was jailed on a total of $52,500 bail for the five charges against him.
As of press time, he remains at the Clackamas County Jail. He will be arraigned sometime later this week.