Army vet killed in crash was well-known in Tacoma motorcycle community

Yahoo

06-06-2025

When a biker in Pierce County purchased a new motorcycle, they'd often find a little fish hook drawn on its mirror. Rodger Smith, who went by Dean and also was known as 'Fish Hook,' was the usual culprit.
'As soon as you went outside on the bike and looked in your mirror you realized Fish Hook was there,' Ryan Eaton, who considered Smith his best friend, told The News Tribune. 'And there were places you would go and see little fish hooks.'
Eaton said seeing little fish hooks now is hard to take after Smith was killed over a week ago in a crash.
Smith and his wife were riding their motorcycles on 152nd Street East in South Hill when the driver of a Jeep Cherokee reportedly struck him. Before the crash, the driver's vehicle reportedly went out of control when it exited a right-hand corner, crossed the center line and hit Smith head-on, according to charging documents.
Smith was ejected from his bike and died upon impact, documents show.
Pierce County prosecutors charged Christy Lynn Carter, 42, with vehicular homicide. Prosecutors say Carter was driving drunk at the time, with her recorded her blood-alcohol level allegedly at 0.15 percent, above the legal limit of 0.08. She was released from the Pierce County Jail on May 28 on a $100,000 bond, records show.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office identified the victim as Rodger Smith of Puyallup. He died from multiple blunt force injuries and his manner of death was listed as an accident, according to a news release.
Eaton met Smith through mutual friends that he rode motorcycles with over a decade ago. Smith was part of a local motorcycle club in Tacoma and a proud U.S. Army combat veteran.
'He was the kind of guy to try to make everything fun,' Eaton told The News Tribune on Thursday. 'He always tried to put a positive twist on things, and try to get everybody to laugh.'
Eaton said he learned of Smith's death after a mutual friend called him to say people had been posting on Facebook about the crash.
'Then I saw the video, the raw video from the scene, and I immediately recognized the bike, because that bike spent several months with me. I just got that bike put back together, had the engine done up, and just got it running right,' Eaton said. 'It was his favorite bike.'
The next day, Eaton rode out to the accident scene because felt he needed to go there.
'That's kind of how I had to originally accept what had happened, by actually being there and seeing the large area that this accident scene covered,' he said.
Tributes have poured in through Facebook from people who knew Smith. Eaton said his friend was well known, and anytime Smith showed up at an event, there was always someone who knew him there.
Smith also always made it a priority to check up on the soldiers that he served with, Eaton said. He would go to reunions with them, making sure they were OK as they had seen stuff 'that none of us want to think about seeing.'
'That's the ultimate sacrifice, to leave your country and lose your life for your country. But to survive it, come home and be taken out this way — it just doesn't seem right,' Eaton said.
A celebration of life is scheduled for June 21 when people will be riding to Eatonville for a gathering. There will be a service at the Tahoma National Cemetery on June 25. Eaton said he expected 'quite a few people' to show up at both events.