RICHLAND – Once upon a time, say 7 a.m. on Sunday, there was a 27-year-old Richland man named Benjamin Hales.
He reportedly went for a walk in West Richland. Pretty soon, he came upon a house at 5108 Dove Lane. He allegedly walked right in.
There wasn’t any porridge eaten, according to the police report, but Hales had been drinking.
He apparently also was a little tired. He went into a bedroom and quickly fell asleep in a bed that felt just right.
As he was sleeping, the homeowners came home.
Someone is in our home, said the husband. They looked around and when they got to one of the bedrooms, they found Hales asleep.
That’s when the homeowners called West Richland police. Officers arrived and woke up Hales. He reportedly was only wearing boxer shorts and couldn’t tell police how he ended up there.
He was taken to Benton County jail, on suspicion of criminal trespass, where he was assured of getting an uncomfortable bed.
Tri-City Herald<P>
A cougar may have been spotted near the Sehome Arboretum late Monday night.
A student walking on Bill McDonald Parkway near the arboretum entrance just before midnight saw a large animal emerge from the bushes, said Western Washington University police.
The animal, which the witness estimated weighed 150 pounds, ran back into the wooded area.
WWU Police Chief Jim Shaw said although the sighting happened at night, the student was fairly certain the animal was a cougar. Police and wildlife officials have searched the area.
Shaw said the only campus cougar sighting he recalls in his nine years as chief was in 1998.
Bellingham Herald
A Tenino officer depicted zapping a man between the legs with a stun gun in what appears to be consensual horseplay on a YouTube video is under investigation by the department, interim Tenino Police Chief Larry Dickerson said Tuesday.
The officer, Randy Reynolds, has said the video was taken more than a year ago, and the man who was zapped asked Reynolds to demonstrate the less-than-lethal weapon, which sends an electric current through the body to temporarily incapacitate a person.
“Yeah, that’s inappropriate. The department does not tolerate that kind of behavior, at least this administration,” Dickerson said.
“He said he just wanted to know what it felt like. Randy didn’t want to do it at first, but the guy kept asking,” said Dickerson, who interviewed the man.
No uniformed officer should be demonstrating his stun gun outside of the line of duty except during training exercises, the chief said. “You don’t just go around doing your own demonstrations.”
Reynolds, 30, has been with the police department south of Olympia since December 2005. He will receive a formal reprimand in his personnel file and a warning not to misuse police equipment, Dickerson said. He also must review the department’s Taser policy and go over them with an instructor.
Dickerson said he was told that Reynolds was uniformed in the YouTube video because he was on his way to work, but had been attending a social gathering.
The Olympian
Apparently, some walk-on riders are “waving” and “going” as senior citizens under Washington State Ferries’ new Wave2Go electronic ticketing system when they can’t even legally buy a drink.
Ferry executives grappling with community complaints at a Tuesday night community forum didn’t deny the practice of younger people buying sharply discounted senior-citizen tickets online at the WSF Web site at www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/wave2go/ and at kiosks.
One audience member called it the “senior citizen card scam.”
Nor could officials produce a figure on how much the ferry system is losing over the practice in which once the tickets are purchased, they’re anonymously swiped through a slot at unmonitored turnstiles leading onto the boats.
Steve Rodgers, regional operations manager for the ferry system, claimed ferry employees are now watching for thrifty underage transgressors.
Kitsap Sun
Nine dogs tied to trees without food or water and a 10th dog roaming nearby were rescued from Capitol State Forest on May 11, but Thurston County Animal Services held off on publicizing the discovery to give the owner a chance to come forward.
That didn’t happen, animal services director Susanne Beauregard said Tuesday.
“It was like (a) cougar cafeteria,” she said, explaining the dogs easily could have fallen prey to large wild animals.
In some cases the dogs were so tightly bound they had only about one foot of mobility. They weren’t significantly thin and were relatively young, she said.
Five of the dogs were placed with Northwind Pet Care Center but are expected to be moved back to the county center, she said. The other five at the county’s animal shelter are more aggressive and feral, and staff will observe them for a few more days before deciding whether they’re available for adoption.
If the dogs can be adopted, their photos will be posted at PetFinders.com and at the county animal shelter at www.jointanimalservices.org.
The Olympian
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