SEATAC — The laser light that flashed on two planes landing Thursday night at Sea-Tac Airport was the third time this week Sea-Tac planes have been harrassed.
Airport spokesman Perry Cooper says planes also were hit with laser light Monday and Wednesday nights, making a total of about 30 planes since the incidents began in February. The planes have been hit by green or red laser lights on at least nine different nights in the same area two or three miles north of the airport.
A reward of up to $1,000 is being offered through Crime Stoppers to find the culprit.
Tacoma: Young man shot, wounded on bus
Tacoma police say a young man was shot in the chest and seriously wounded on a Pierce Transit bus. Police took several people into custody.
Police spokesman Mark Fulghum said the shooter had been on the bus and spoke with the victim Friday evening before the shooting. The gunman got off the bus before pulling his gun, then apparently leaned back in and shot the victim.
Fulghum said police were questioning the suspected gunman and witnesses but he had no information about a possible motive.
The suspected gunman and several other people ran off and entered a nearby house but police quickly surrounded it.
The victim was taken to St. Joseph Medical Center but no information was available on his condition.
Seattle: Ex-official gets prison for theft
A former South King County Fire and Rescue official has been sentenced to three years in prison for taking more than $500,000 from the agency.
Grant G. Gaspard, 51, of Olympia was assistant chief of the agency. On Nov. 6 he pleaded guilty to mail fraud. He was also ordered Friday to pay $959,200 in restitution.
Gaspard was in charge of finances and procurement. He admits using phony invoices and purchase orders as well as an agency credit card to steal more than $500,000 from the district over a period of years.
Neah Bay: Whale was NW resident
A gray whale killed illegally in 2007 by Neah Bay men was a Northwest resident and not part of the migrating population.
Cascadia Research matched photos of the whale with previous sightings of a whale identified as CRC-175. The co-founder of the Olympia organization, John Calambokidis, told The Peninsula Daily News it was a fairly well-known whale. It had been spotted 143 times between Northern California and Vancouver Island in 12 years, with seven sightings at Neah Bay.
Two men who killed the whale were given prison sentences and three others probation for violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Kennewick: Delay in murder trial
The trial of a woman accused of killing a pregnant Pasco woman and cutting the baby from her womb has been postponed to September.
KVEW-TV reports Benton County prosecutors and defense lawyers wanted more time to prepare for the trial, which had been set for May 18.
Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong of Kennewick is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Araceli Camacho Gomez. She is accused of cutting Gomez’s nearly full-term son from her womb last June and claiming the baby as her own.
Yakima: Police chief is cleared
An investigator hired by the city of Yakima cleared Police Chief Sam Granato of sexually harassing a rookie female officer.
The report says there was no indication Granato retaliated against officer Stacey Andrews when their friendship soured. However, the report says the chief let his personal relationship cloud the boundaries of authority.
The investigation was conducted by Ellensburg attorney and Central Washington University professor of human resources management Nancy Graber. A copy was obtained Thursday by The Yakima Herald-Republic. City manager Dick Zais told the paper he told Granato to be more cautious with personal relationships with co-workers. Granato says he’ll learn from the experience.
Ocean Shores: Woman shoots herself in foot
A woman who lives near Ocean Shores was seriously wounded when she accidentally shot herself in the foot.
Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott says the 44-year-old woman was packing to move out of her boyfriend’s home Thursday night and searching through a number of guns looking for a specific one.
Scott told KXRO the woman had the barrel of a high-powered rifle propped against her right foot when it fired. The blast nearly took off her foot.
She was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Tacoma: Private investigators sentenced for wire fraud
An employee of a private investigation company and a woman who hired the firm have been spared prison time for illegal dirt digging.
Steven W. Berwick, who worked for Emilio A. and Brandy N. Torrella at BNT Investigations in Belfair, and Darci P. Templeton, a private eye based in Houston, were sentenced in federal court Friday to supervised release and probation, respectively. Both pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges, and Berwick also pleaded guilty to identity theft.
The Torrellas are headed to trial on charges that they used illegal methods of information gathering, including posing as people they were hired to investigate. Prosecutors say they sold wrongfully obtained information to other private investigators, who passed the information on to law firms and others involved in legal cases.
In asking the judge to impose no prison time, prosecutors noted that Templeton only hired the Torrellas a few times and immediately cooperated with authorities, and Berwick was an hourly wage employee of the Torrellas who gained little from his illegal conduct.
Oregon: Tornado strikes, cuts destructive swath
The National Weather Service says a windstorm that carved a path about four miles southeast of the Eastern Oregon town of Adams was a tornado.
The Wednesday evening storm left a path 1.6 miles long and 40 yards wide.
The East Oregonian of Pendleton said the winds swept up a 100-foot section of metal roof from a workshop and dropped it onto another building.
The twister also threw 50-gallon drums up to a quarter-mile away, uprooted trees, tore down limbs and drove a wooden plank through a frame building.
South of the tornado track, winds drove golf ball-size hail through vinyl siding, and nickel-size hail covered the ground.
There were no immediate reports of injuries. Adams is northeast of Pendleton.
From Herald news services
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