Northwest Briefly: Bellingham man charged with 7th DUI
Published 10:14 pm Tuesday, April 7, 2009
SEATTLE — A 62-year-old Bellingham man has been arrested for his seventh drunken driving charge, five of which have occurred within the last five years.
The State Patrol says Marvin D. Ward was arrested by a trooper in King County on Sunday morning after the trooper saw his Toyota Minivan being driven erratically on northbound I-5 near Seattle’s University District.
The State Patrol says Ward was driving with a revoked license and had a breath alcohol concentration of .183, which is more than double the legal limit.
Ward was booked into the King County Jail for felony drunken driving. He is currently being held on $100,000 bail.
Ellensburg: Man arrested in father-daughter holdup in court
A man arrested on a first-degree robbery warrant for holding up a convenience store with his 9-year-old daughter will make his first court appearance Tuesday in Kittitas County.
Officers in Yakima took 42-year-old Robert Daniel Webb of Everett into custody Saturday afternoon. He surrendered to police at a friend’s home.
Police had been looking for Webb since the March 31 robbery near Ellensburg.
On a video that captured the robbery, the robber told the clerk at an AM-PM mini-mart that he had lost his job and needed money for his daughter. The video shows the girl in a pink coat watching as the man beside her pulls a gun and takes about $200.
Mossyrock: Pump-and-run attempt leads to death in Mossyrock
A Mossyrock gas station owner was fatally run over after trying to stop a man from leaving without paying.
Lewis County Sheriff Steven B. Mansfield said a town police officer used a stun gun to subdue and arrest 41-year-old John David Joel Angeline of Lakewood. Angeline was jailed for investigation of third-degree assault and second-degree murder.
Mansfield writes that a man pulled into the Flying K gas station Monday afternoon, pumped $34 worth of gas and prepared to leave without paying.
Witnesses said a woman identified by neighbors as the owner, Soon Yang, ran in front of the pickup truck, but the driver ran over her, backed up over her, then ran over her again and drove about a block before stopping.
Richland: Alabama man pleads guilty in sex case
An Alabama man has admitted that he knew a Boise, Idaho, girl he met through an online game was only 14 when he traveled across the country to have a sexual relationship with her.
Morgan Douglas Jones, 27, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Richland to a reduced charge of travel for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct.
U.S. District Judge Edward Shea could order Jones, of Birmingham, to spend five to 10 years in federal prison when he’s sentenced in July.
The plea agreement details how Jones and the victim met through the internet game World of Warcraft, began a relationship online and agreed to have Jones drive to Idaho to meet.
Energy Department dedicates new classroom building
A Stinger missile and part of a Scud missile are among the teaching tools on display at the Tri-Cities’ newest classroom building.
On Monday the Department of Energy dedicated a new 6,500-square-foot building to provide training in international border protection and help ease the space squeeze at the HAMMER training center north of Richland.
The classrooms were put into immediate use. Representatives of Nigeria, Austria, Scotland and the United States spent Monday learning about preventing smuggling of nuclear materials as part of a class for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
The building was built with $2.5 million allocated by the U.S. State Department in 2005.
Tacoma: Murder charge filed against teen caught in Oregon
A teenager who was caught in Oregon has been charged with first-degree murder in a gang-related shooting near Tacoma.
Pierce County Deputy Prosecutor Ed Murphy said arrangements were made to return 18-year-old Damien Ray Garza to Tacoma on Tuesday.
Garza was arrested Thursday after leaving an apartment in Beaverton, Ore., a suburb of Portland. He is charged with the fatal shooting of 34-year-old Tyrone M. Tinsley in Lakewood on March 26.
Police say Garza was with some gang friends that evening when Tinsley walked by his house. The two belong to rival gangs, and the shooting reportedly occurred after the two exchanged gang-related insults.
Garza and his brother say Tinsley pulled out a meat cleaver, but others say he had dropped the cleaver and was unarmed when he was shot.
Vancouver, Wash.: Trust buys chum salmon habitat on Lower Columbia
The Columbia Land Trust has acquired 305 acres of important chum salmon spawning habitat in the lower Columbia River.
The Vancouver, Wash.-based trust said Monday it bought the land at the confluence of the Grays River and Crazy Johnson Creek in Wahkiakum County for $968,000 from Hancock Timber Resource Group. The money includes $408,000 from the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board, $362,000 from the Bonneville Power Administration and $198,000 from the U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service.
Wild chum salmon have been listed as a threatened species since 1999.
Also Monday, the Nisqually Land Trust acquired 720 acres near the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park from Hancock Timber. The land will provide critical habitat in the Kapowsin Forest for spotted owls, marbled murrelets, elk and other wildlife.
Yakima: Army Reserve unit off to Middle East
The Army Reserve’s 737th Transportation Co. is preparing for its second deployment to the Middle East.
The unit, based at the Yakima Training Center, has scheduled a mobilization ceremony at the center Thursday. It is being sent to provide long-haul fuel transportation for military units in Iraq.
The unit will first head to Fort McCoy, Wis., for more training, then to Fort Dix, N.J., before going overseas. The 737ths spend 14 months in Iraq and Kuwait before coming back to Yakima in February 2005.
Wiley City: Fire cuts power to 22,000 customers west of Yakima
A brush fire on Tuesday left about 22,000 customers without electricity in the Wiley City area west of Yakima.
A Pacific Power representative says West Valley firefighters were battling a brush fire when a utility pole caught fire.
The transmission system in the area was taken down, and utility officials say about 22,000 homes and businesses were without power as of 11:10 a.m.
There was no immediate word on the cause of the fire or when electricity would be restored.
Eugene, Ore: Having a bad hair day, Eugene?
Bad hair days may be more common in Eugene than in many other places across the country.
A California hair products Web site has ranked Eugene No. 13 on its list of the worst cities in the nation for hair conditions, citing the humidity.
The list was posted by www.totalbeauty.com, based in Santa Monica, Calif.
Company officials say the rankings took into account other factors than humidity, including air pollution, the number of beauty salons, water hardness and demographics, along with wind and sun exposure.
Corpus Christi, Texas, topped the bad hair conditions list, which also includes Olympia, Pittsburgh, Houston, New Orleans and Cincinnati.
Wolf Creek, Ore.: Truck driver blames burrito for crash on I-5
A truck driver blamed his breakfast burrito for a crash on I-5 that scattered a load of building materials across all four lanes of the freeway near Wolf Creek in Southern Oregon.
The Mail Tribune newspaper reports that 62-year-old Bradley Lavern Ruonavaara of Murphy told Oregon State Police troopers he lost control of his tractor-trailer rig on a curve when he reached for his burrito.
Drivers at the scene of the Monday morning crash helped clear 60-foot building joists from the southbound lanes.
But northbound lanes of I-5 were blocked for nearly an hour.
Ruonavaara was treated for minor injuries and cited.
Pacific City, Ore.: McMinnville teen feared dead after cliff fall
A McMinnville teenager was feared drowned after he fell off a 50-foot coastal cliff in Pacific City.
Authorities say 18-year-old Tyler Robertson of McMinnville was with several friends Monday at the top of a dune with a vertical drop of about 50 feet on one side.
Friends were able to see Robertson after he fell. But they said he did not move and was eventually washed away into the water.
Anchorage, Alaska: Shallow earthquake rattles southcentral Alaska
A shallow earthquake strongly shook a large swath of Alaska.
The magnitude 4.7 quake struck at 12:13 p.m. Tuesday and was widely felt in southcentral parts of the state.
The earthquake was centered 20 miles north of Anchorage, where it was accompanied with a loud boom.
The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center says the quake also was felt in other communities, including Wasilla and Palmer.
Monitors at the center say the temblor was felt in a large area because it was fairly shallow, about 16 miles deep.
The center says there are no reports of injury or damage and no tsunami is expected from the quake.
Associated Press
