KENNEWICK – A retired Tacoma police captain was convicted of manslaughter Friday in the shooting death of a fishing buddy.
A Benton County Superior Court jury convicted Walter Copland, 64, of fatally shooting Harvey “Al” Anthis in September after a night of drinking in Kennewick.
Copland, originally charged with first-degree murder, faces a seven- to nine-year prison term. Defense attorneys argued that Copland was in an alcoholic blackout and did not know what he was doing when his friend was fatally shot.
Copland worked for the Tacoma Police Department from 1968 until his retirement in 1996. Anthis retired from Columbia Basin College in Pasco in 1999 after working there as a professor for 28 years.
Associated Press
Spokane: City won’t host skating event
Spokane has been passed over for the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships, promoters Toby Steward and Barb Beddor say.
“Spokane can remain extremely proud to have been considered, much less be a finalist, for the most prestigious competition outside of the Olympics, for the sport of figure skating,” Beddor said in a statement.
U.S. Figure Skating is expected to announce the host city next week.
The Spokesman-Review
Bellingham: Snowpack no record, but healthy
The amount of snow in the North Cascades is nowhere near record levels, but compared with last year the slopes are buried under heaps of snow.
Snow depth at the Mount Baker Ski Area was 192 inches April 1, the last time a twice-monthly comparison report was generated by the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center in Seattle. That’s well below the 1999 record of 311 inches, but much deeper than the 78 inches for the same day last year.
The Bellingham Herald
Yacolt: Parakeets lose power pole perch
YACOLT – A clan of Quaker parakeets has lost its home.
The birds crafted their own version of a condominium by weaving twigs around an electrical transformer on a power pole. More than a dozen of the birds lived in the nest.
The Quaker parakeets, actually small parrots native to South America, had been adopted by neighbors.
But the welcome mat was pulled along with everything else on Tuesday night when four bird rescue volunteers and crewmen from Clark Public Utilities dismantled the nests.
Volunteers from NW Bird Rescue and Adoption had hoped to capture the birds before starting the demolition, but nobody was home when the rescuers took the nest down.
The Columbian
Covington: Thieves stumble into arrest
Two people delivering newspapers witnessed a liquor store burglary early Thursday morning while waiting for their papers to arrive.
They called 911, and the burglars were nabbed not far from the scene.
Lisa Corpuz and Laura Kump were waiting for their King County Journals near the intersection of Kent Kangley Road and Wax Road. About 2:45 a.m., “I heard a pop and glass breaking,” Corpuz said.
Then they saw two young men stumbling out of the liquor store, dropping bottles of liquor as they ran.
Within minutes, with the help of Corpuz and Kump, police arrested the two suspects, an unemployed Kent man in his 30s and a 19-year-old Kentwood High School student.
King County Journal
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