Herald staff
SEATLE — Five young men and two teen-age girls remained hospitalized Monday, recovering from two downtown shootings over the weekend. Police were still investigating the shootings that occurred less than a mile apart on different nights in Seattle’s Pioneer Square area. They could not say whether the incidents were related. There have been no arrests in either shooting, police spokesman Clem Benton said.
About 10 p.m. Sunday, two men and two teen-age girls were injured in their car after a man in the car behind them got out and fired at least six shots through their driver-side window. The victims’ car was stopped at red light near the former Kingdome site. A fifth person in the car — the mother of at least one of the victims — was not injured, police said.
Police said they have no evidence that Sunday’s shooting was related to another multiple shooting roughly seven blocks away outside a Pioneer Square nightclub Saturday morning that left five men injured. Two of the men injured in the shooting outside the Bohemian Cafe at about 3 a.m. Saturday were treated at Harborview and released. Three remained in serious condition Monday, O’Brien said.
Bomb threat on bridge: The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, which carries Highway 520 across Lake Washington between Seattle and its eastern suburbs, was closed in both directions during the Monday evening rush hour because of a bomb threat against a Metro bus. Traffic backed up for miles. The incident occurred about 5:45 p.m. when a group of young men in a black Dodge Dakota drove past an eastbound Seattle Metro Transit bus and yelled that there was a bomb on the bus, Trooper Monica Hunter said. The driver stopped the bus near the old toll booth and evacuated the passengers, and then called the patrol, she said.
The bus driver reportedly was able to get a license number of the pickup involved in the report. A police bomb squad was called to check the bus.
Ride the bus, get paid: Seattle plans to pay two dozen families $85 per week to keep their extra cars at home. The program is an experiment in alternative transportation. For six weeks, the families will leave their extra car parked and keep a diary of how they get around. "We want to start to change the way people think about driving," said Jemae Pope of the city’s strategic planning office. The city has set aside $50,000 for the program, which begins early next month. Pope said $85 per week is about what it costs to keep an extra car, and the participants will see how much money they could save by using other forms of transportation. The city is also offering grants of up to $1,000 to people or groups with ideas for cutting car use.
Second kayaker found: A body found near Lummi Island is that of a second University of Washington student who died on a kayaking trip, the Whatcom County medical examiner’s office said Monday. The body, found Sunday by a pleasure boater, was identified as that of Grant Tyler, 22, of Billings, Mont. The medical examiner’s office said he had drowned. The Coast Guard, the Navy, the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office and the Canadian Coast Guard have been searching for Tyler since the body of his kayaking companion, Stephen Buergey, 20, was found Saturday by a boater near James Island, on the southeast side of the San Juan Island chain. The search for the pair began Friday morning, after a waterproof bag containing their identification washed ashore.
Hops warehouse burns: For the second time in less than two weeks, fire destroyed a large warehouse loaded with bales of hops, the bitter plant used to flavor beer and balance the sweetness of malt. The loss of 3.5 million to 4 million pounds of hops when nationwide production is estimated at about 68 million pounds is significant, but it’s too early to say what effect the fires will have on crop prices, Doug MacKinnon, director of the Yakima-based Hop Growers of America, said Monday. The fire Sunday at the John I. Haas warehouse caused at least $2 million in damage, Yakima Fire Chief Al Gillespie said. A Sept. 15 blaze at the Hollingbery and Son warehouse caused $5 million in damage, he said. The causes are under investigation, but spontaneous combustion in bales of resin-loaded hops is a storage problem. A year ago, fire gutted another Haas warehouse.
Girl escapes abductor: A 10-year-old girl escaped an attempted abduction early Monday when her screams alerted neighbors who chased after the car carrying the girl, authorities said. King County sheriff’s spokesman Mac Allen said the girl was walking to her school bus stop when a man drove up behind her, got out, carried her back to his car and started to drive off. She screamed, alerting at least three adult witnesses who ran after the car to a nearby intersection. The man ordered the girl out of the car and sped away. She was shaken up but not otherwise injured. The driver was described as a slim white man in his 20s. The car was a gray or light blue compact station wagon.
