Northwest briefly

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, June 6, 2007

VANCOUVER, Wash. – State troopers and firefighters scrambled Tuesday afternoon, responding to five rear-end collisions on Interstate 205 that damaged at least 11 vehicles.

The cause of each crash, troopers said: bad driving in bad weather. Heavy stop-and-go traffic accentuated the problem.

Northbound traffic on I-205 was blocked for about 40 minutes.

Four people were taken to area hospitals, officials said.

The crashes, beginning shortly before 3 p.m. and all within a period of several minutes, occurred in three areas within about a mile of each other.

The Columbian

Castle Rock: Man killed by SWAT team

A man wanted on assault charges was flushed out of a garage with chemicals and then was shot to death after he threatened a law enforcement team, police said.

Police said a standoff developed after they went to arrest the man on warrants charging him with second- and third-degree assault and contempt of court Tuesday.

He barricaded himself in a detached garage and threatened that he had a gun, police said.

Members of the Lower Columbia Special Weapons and Tactics Team tried to talk him into surrendering, then “introduced chemical agents” into the garage. The man came out, threatened members of the team and was shot, according to a police statement.

The man died after being taken to St. John Medical Center in Longview.

Associated Press

Oregon: Former police officer tried in rape case

A Salem woman testified Tuesday that when she was 17, a city police officer offered her a ride to a trial and raped her on the way.

“Who do you think they’re going to believe?” the woman said former police officer Sterling Alexander told her. “A police officer or a girl who’s skipping school?”

The woman said she was a student in August 2003 when she witnessed a crash that involved drunken driving and spoke to police about it. Later, the driver threatened her, and she called police.

Alexander came to her house to talk about it, she testified. He called her afterward, and started talking about personal matters.

Before the drunken-driving trial, she testified, Alexander gave her advice about what to wear in court and gave her a ride. On the way, she said, he drove to a parking lot, complained of engine trouble, parked at an area secluded by stacks of pallets and raped her.

Alexander, 39, also is accused of forcing a Salem community enforcement officer to perform oral sex during a police ride-along in 2004 and of forcing a single mother to have sex with him in her home while he was a Stayton police officer in 2001.

Associated Press