Police Sergeant Donald Herbert Lansing had attended the Department Spring Shoot and was returning to the Monterey Police Department on Tuesday, May 4. All sworn members of the Department were required to attend the event. Lansing was authorized to use his private vehicle to attend. He was on duty and in uniform at the time of the accident.
Lansing was driving a half-ton pickup truck, westbound, when the truck collided with an eastbound 2 ½-ton Army truck, on Gigling Road on the Army base in Fort Ord, on a curve near the intersection of Watkins Gate Road.
Lansing, 38, was killed immediately. The driver of the Army truck was taken to the hospital at Fort Ord where he recovered from minor head injuries.
Funeral services for Lansing were held on Friday, May 7, at the Mission Mortuary. Private cremation followed with inurnment in the Little Chapel-By-The-Sea in Pacific Grove.
Officials determined that the driver of the truck was exceeding the speed limit and was on the wrong side of the road.
Lansing, who was born in Westerville, Ohio, had served in the U.S. Marine Corps for five years and the U.S. Army for three years.