THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503080517
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
In his cell at the Norfolk City Jail, Arnold O. Peterson says he still dreams about the night of Jan. 21.
That was the night he led a caravan of police cars on a 15-mile chase from Virginia Beach into Norfolk and down Brambleton Avenue. It was there that the van he was driving ran a red light and crashed into a BMW, killing a man and a woman.
In the first interview since he was jailed after that accident, Peterson said Tuesday that his dreams don't always end the same way.
Sometimes, he said, the dreams take him safely to his mother's house in Portsmouth, his initial destination on that fateful night. Other times, he stops in Chesapeake, never getting to Virginia Beach.
It was in Virginia Beach at 11 p.m. Jan. 21, police say, that the 47-year-old heating and air-conditioning salesman sped past a radar checkpoint on International Parkway and refused to stop for an officer.
The police pursued him along the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway to Interstate 264 and finally onto the streets of downtown Norfolk, where William L. Rosbe, 50, a Richmond lawyer and Theresa G. Timms, 40, of Virginia Beach were killed.
Peterson is charged with involuntary manslaughterin the couple's deaths.
In one version of his recurring dream about that night, Peterson said, he does stop when the police lights go on along International Parkway. He pulls over, sits by the side of the road and waits for the police officer.
But sometimes his dreams reflect reality. They are filled with the flashing lights of police cars behind him on Brambleton, the clash of metal, the BMW rolling in front of him.
And then the real nightmare hits him like a fever. He learns the next day from a doctor at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital that two people died.
``I just keep thinking that this whole thing could have been avoided,'' Peterson said in the interview. He discussed the accident, his history of drunken driving, his mental health problems and his broken family life.
``If we had only stayed on the interstate. I was going to go through the tunnel to my mother's house. The Portsmouth police could have arrested me there. That would have been fine. But I don't trust the Virginia Beach police. That's why I ran.''
Peterson, during his 46 days in jail, has had plenty of time to think about what happened. He says he accepts that he did wrong and admits that he should have stopped for the police on International Parkway. But he thinks he has a satisfactory driving record, even though it shows two DUI convictions, two other charges of DUI dating back to 1976, a reckless-driving conviction and an improper-driving conviction.
``I consider myself a good driver,'' Peterson said. ``I'm a salesman, and sometimes I drive as much as 52,000 miles a year.''
Peterson said the Virginia Beach police stopped him for drunken driving in 1992 and again in 1994. In 1994, he said, he injured his hand in a resulting scuffle, needing six stitches to close a wound.
On Feb. 27 a Virginia Beach judge heard the 1994 case. He suspended Peterson's license for three years, fined him $1,000 and gave him 30 days in jail.
Peterson said he thought he recognized the same police officer on radar watch on International Parkway who ticketed him for DUI in 1994. ``I was petrified,'' Peterson said. ``It was the same people all over again. I just couldn't handle that situation at all.''
So he ran, reaching speeds of 80 mph on the expressway and speeding through the toll plaza at 70 mph. The Virginia State Police, state troopers and Norfolk police took part in the pursuit.
Peterson was injured slightly in the accident. Police said they had to spray the 6-foot-2-inch, 220-pound man with pepper gas to subdue him.
Peterson thinks the news media are being unfair to him. And he believes that anti-drunken-driving groups are being harsher than they should. ``I know I did wrong, but it really seems like I am being singled out,'' said Peterson. ``. . . They won't be satisfied until I get the maximum conviction and sentence.''
Peterson said he has been in psychotherapy for eight years and has been on the antidepressant Prozac for years. He admitted to being an alcoholic and said that drinking helped ruin his marriage.
Society, he said, has an ambivalent attitude about alcohol that makes criticism of drunken drivers less than sincere.
``Our society is so funny about this,'' Peterson said. ``It is legal to buy, it is legal to use. But it is not not legal to get behind the wheel with.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Arnold O. Peterson, who says he's haunted by dreams of the Jan. 21
chase and crash that killed two people.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC HIGH-SPEED CHASES FATALITIES
ARREST by CNB