Northwest Briefly: Tacoma police kill man after six-hour standoff

TACOMA — Police shot and killed a man after a standoff that followed a call about suicidal threats.

Police were called to a home on Lighthouse Lane NE shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday.

Police spokesman Mark Fulghum told KING-5 TV a man had been involved in a domestic dispute with his wife and had locked himself inside after his wife left.

Fulghum says the man displayed several weapons while barricaded inside the home, and was shot after pointing one of the weapons at a SWAT officer.

The standoff lasted for more than six hours.

@3. Headline Briefs 14 no:Man sues over family’s deaths on train tracks

A southwest Washington man has sued Cowlitz County, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and Amtrak a year and a half after a passenger train struck the car his wife was driving, killing her, their daughter and two friends.

Warren Dean Mako argues the tragedy could have been avoided if the rural railroad crossing near his house north of Castle Rock had been made safer.

Donna Mako, 44, Laura Mako, 17, and two friends — Ace K. Hansen and Marcus A. Cokeley, both 18 — died July 3, 2006, when a southbound train struck the car Donna Mako was driving, tearing it in two and tossing part of it 300 feet up the tracks.

The crossing at Dwight Road lacks gates and is “unreasonably dangerous” because it includes high-speed double tracks, Mako’s lawsuit states.

Bellingham: Man missing in Birch Bay

A Coast Guard helicopter and a Coast Guard small boat have launched a search for a 60-year-old man from Birch Bay after his 24-foot pleasure craft was found drifting ashore on the north end of Lummi Island.

The Coast Guard began the search on Sunday after the family of Robin Sherman reported he hasn’t been seen or heard from since going out in Birch Bay on the Sea Quest at 6 a.m. on Saturday.

An HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Coast Guard Group Port Angeles and a small boat from Coast Guard Station Bellingham looked for the missing boater on Sunday.

Associated Press