Former Pierce County sheriff's major jailed for drunken vehicle assault

A former major in the Pierce County sheriff's office pleaded guilty to felony vehicular-assault charges and was sentenced to three months in jail for an alcohol-fueled crash that injured an 8-year-old child and his grandmother, a county prosecuting attorney spokesperson said.

Chadwick Dickerson, a 24-year law enforcement veteran, also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of obstructing a law enforcement officer at the scene of the accident last July.

Pierce County prosecuting attorney's spokesperson Adam Faber said Dickerson was whisked off to begin his jail term shortly after his sentencing Tuesday morning. He will be placed on 12 months of community supervision following his release.

The sentence was at the low end of the standard three-to-nine-month sentencing recommendation for a class C felony first-time offender and was outlined in a plea agreement, Faber said.

Dickerson was the former head of the sheriff's criminal investigations bureau. He retired from the sheriff's office shortly after he was charged in October, Faber said.

Dickerson was arrested in July after he allegedly crashed his personal pickup into a vehicle carrying six people, including a pregnant woman and her three children. An 8-year-old boy and his 57-year-old grandmother were injured, according to charging documents.

Documents filed by the Pierce County prosecuting attorney's office, which charged Dickerson on Wednesday, raised questions about sheriff's deputies' handling of the situation upon arriving at the scene. The investigation was turned over to Washington State Patrol shortly after the crash.

According to the charging documents, Dickerson was driving his pickup when he failed to yield at an intersection in Graham, striking a Ford Expedition that had the right of way. A woman, who was seven months pregnant, was driving the Expedition. Her husband; their children, ages 3, 4 and 8; and the woman's mother, 57, were also in the car. All of them were taken to the hospital.

According to charging documents, phone records showed that shortly after the crash, Dickerson called his bureau chief, who notified a command duty officer that the major had been involved in what was described as a noninjury accident."

Records showed the grandmother had a fractured vertebra and six rib fractures, and the 8-year-old boy had a traumatic hernia, bruising and an ankle injury.

Dickerson and the duty officer spoke on the phone before the arrival of two Pierce County deputies, one of whom failed to activate his body-worn camera before speaking to Dickerson. The deputy turned the camera on while talking to others at the scene, but turned it off again when he went to speak to Dickerson, according to court records and an investigation conducted by State Patrol. The camera remained off for 14 minutes, during which time he spoke with Dickerson and had several phone conversations, the records show.

The second deputy briefly turned on his camera and could be heard telling colleagues that the collision was a vehicular assault and discussing whether Dickerson showed signs of impairment, records show. The command duty officer who had talked to Dickerson by phone earlier concluded that the sheriff's office would "keep the investigation.

Dickerson's daughter also arrived at the scene and was allowed to remove his golf clubs and other items from his truck, although she later said she did not remove any alcoholic beverages, according to court documents.

After roughly an hour at the scene, deputies let Dickerson leave without advising State Patrol, according to the documents. After Dickerson's arrest, a deputy wrote he "thought it was best" because he was injured, according to the report.

A trooper followed Dickerson to an urgent care, where he activated his body-worn camera and asked Dickerson if he had been drinking - apparently the first alcohol-related inquiry during the ongoing investigation. The major said he had two vodka sodas while golfing and that it had been three hours since his last drink.

Dickerson declined to perform field sobriety tests and questioned why he had not been read his rights due to the nature of the questions he was being asked. The trooper, noting Dickerson's bloodshot eyes and the smell of alcohol, placed him under arrest.

A friend who was golfing with Dickerson later said the major had consumed four drinks at the golf course and "at least one more" at the friend's house after golfing, the documents state. Three hours after the crash, Dickerson's blood alcohol content was .09%, which is above the legal limit.

Information from The Seattle Times' archives is included in this report.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 11:34 PM.