Archive for June, 2011

Sharyn’s Sirens: Daily police and fire roundup

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

THEFT

• Centralia police were called just before 7 o’clock this morning about the theft of a car trailer from the 3600 block of Galvin Road.

• Centralia police were called to a car prowl about 6:40 a.m. yesterday at the 2500 block of Kristine Court. Someone had broke a window to get inside and steal an iPod, according to the Centralia Police Department.

• Somebody broke into a residence on the 1100 block of Alder Street in Centralia and took knives, tobacco and money, according to a report made to Centralia police on Tuesday.

• Somebody removed a lock and stole money from a newspaper box outside a restaurant on the 3200 block of Galvin Road in Centralia, according to a report made to the Centralia Police Department on Tuesday.

• Somebody cut the fuel lines to three vans belonging to the Adna School District sometime between June 20 and Tuesday, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reported yesterday. Gasoline was stolen as well.

VANDALISM

• Centralia police were called just before 4 a.m. yesterday to the 800 block of Ham Hill Road where someone had thrown a flower pot through the window of a home.

• Somebody shot out several windows of a vehicle, flattened it tires and spray painted all over it with black paint on the 1800 block of North Pearl Street in Centralia. it was reported about 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Just hours earlier in the same area, the rear window of another vehicle was found shot out. Police say a BB gun may have been used. Police Sgt. Kurt Reichert said it didn’t appear random, it seemed like “somebody was mad at somebody.”

SURLY MAN GETS JAILED

• A 54-year-old man was arrested yesterday after deputies went to a trespass and civil dispute on the 3700 block of Jackson Highway outside Chehalis. He was asked to stop moving items off the property so deputies could question him, but he argued and yelled and said he didn’t have to listen to cops, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. Bruce W. Norris “pushed through” a sergeant, and came at a deputy, refusing to back away when he was told to do so, Chief Civl Deputy Stacy Brown said this morning. Norris was booked into the Lewis County Jail for obstruction, Brown said.

COLLISIONS

• Chehalis police were called about 4:20 p.m. yesterday after someone watched a truck from Darigold brake one of the arms at the railroad crossing on West Main Street and keep driving. Chehalis police detective Sgt. Rick McNamara said it happens “all the time” because the trucks are long and slow and the drivers usually call in and tell Burlington Northern what happened. Technically it’s a hit and run but whenever police contact Burlington Northern, they say they’ve already spoke with Darigold and will be out to repair it, McNamara said.

• A deputy was called  to the 400 block of Toledo-Vader Road on Tuesday where a Lewis County Public Works truck hailing a chip trailer struck a guard rail damaging the trailer, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

• A deputy was called after a car carrying four people attending a festival was totaled in a single-vehicle accident on Forest Road 25 outside Randle on Tuesday morning. The occupants, ages 19 through 26 – from San Francisco, California; Richmond, Virginia; Fort Lauderdale Florida and Cooper City, Florida were mostly uninjured, except one suffered minor cuts to their hand and arm, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reported yesterday. The driver had lost control in a curve. He was ticketed, Chief Civl Deputy Stacy Brown said.

Onalaska fatal shooting: Brady faces sentencing next week

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Onalaska resident Ronald A. Brady will be sentenced on Wednesday morning following his conviction last week for fatally shooting a suspected burglar.

Brady, 60, argued self defense in his trial last week in Lewis County Superior Court. He avoided a first-degree murder conviction, but a jury of six men and six women found him guilty of second-degree manslaughter.

Judge Nelson Hunt did not order him into custody after the verdict on Friday evening, but had him return today to the courtroom in Chehalis to learn his sentencing date. He told Brady it would happen very soon after today.

Hunt this morning said sentencing should be next week.

Defense attorney Don Blair asked the judge if it could be held off until the end of July, as his client had his affairs to get in order before he goes to prison.

“We can do it on the sixth, or he can go into custody now,” Hunt said. “It was a big break for him not to go into custody that day.”

While the crime has a standard sentencing range of between 21 and 27 months, Brady faces an additional  mandatory minimum of three years – with no possibility of reduction for any “good” time – because it was committed with a firearm.

Brady admitted firing five or six shots with a .22 caliber rifle, three of them toward 56-year-old Thomas McKenzie of Morton who was outside the house Brady owns and died at the scene.

The retired bachelor was acquitted of assault in the case of McKenzie’s wife, Joanna McKenzie who testified she that while she took cover behind a truck in the driveway, she heard the glass in its windshield shot out and felt “air or something” graze her face.

Hunt will sentence him at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
•••

Read “Breaking news: Onalaska murder trial: Guilty of second-degree manslaughter” from Friday June 24, 2011, here

News brief: Prosecutor finds deputy shooting justified

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

This news story was updated at 9:55 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reports this morning that the prosecutor’s review of Deputy Matt McKnight’s fatal shooting of a Napavine man last week concluded McKnight was justified.

The 27-year-old Lewis County sheriff’s deputy remained on paid administrative leave as of this morning, according to Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown.

Brown said an internal investigation is being conducted separately.

Deputies were assisting the Napavine Police Department with a call to a burglary in progress, around 2 a.m. on June 20, in which a man reportedly was stabbing the door of a home and trying to get in.

McKnight confronted the suspect several blocks away and the sheriff’s office says he refused to take his hands out of his pockets and then charged McKnight.

Thirty-three-year-old Steven V. Petersen, of Napavine died at the scene of a gunshot wound to the head.

A regional shooting response team, made up of law enforcement officers from the counties of Thurston, Mason, Pacific, and Grays Harbor conducted the investigation and turned their results over to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office, according to the sheriff’s office.

In a news release this morning, Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield says prosecutors concluded the deputy’s use of deadly force was justified.

McKnight fired four shots, three of which struck Petersen, according to Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer. Petersen was not found to be armed with a knife, he said.

Meyer said the deputy was left with no choice. Petersen was intending to do him harm, and McKnight was in fear for his life, he said.

The sheriff’s office internal investigation will include a “shooting review board”, as well as a review of policy, procedures and training, according to Sheriff Mansfield.

More to come
•••

Read “Breaking news: Deputy shoots, kills burglary suspect in Napavine” from Monday June 20, 2011, here

News brief: Training fire Thursday near Rochester High School

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Firefighters plan to burn down a Grand Mound area house tomorrow adjacent to Rochester High School.

The live fire training exercise is scheduled to begin around noon and continue until roughly 10 p.m., according to West Thurston Regional Fire Authority spokesperson Lt. Lanette Dyer.

The Rochester-Littlerock area fire department will be joined by firefighters from two other agencies. Their training will include fire behavior, smoke conditions, night operations and interagency collaboration, according to Dyer.

Th school district donated a vacant 1,400 square-foot house to the fire department to get the property cleared, according to Battalion Chief Jacob Yake.

The address is 19735 Carper Rd S.W.

Carper Road will be closed at Old Highway 9 and at the west end of 197th Avenue Southwest.

News brief: John Booth’s murder trial postponed once again

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS  – John Allen Booth Jr.’s murder trial for last summer’s triple slaying has been postponed until Nov. 7.

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John A. Booth Jr.

His defense attorney Roger Hunko told a judge yesterday a double-homicide trial he has in Yakima just got moved to mid-August.

Booth was scheduled to be tried in Lewis County Superior Court at the end of August, but Hunko expects his Yakima trial to last three to four weeks, Hunko told Judge Richard Brosey yesterday.

Brosey granted the extension, even though Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher said he preferred not to delay.

They chose November because both Brosey and Meagher are unavailable in September, and Meagher has another murder trial scheduled in October.

Booth, who turned 32 last week, is charged in the August 21 shootings of four people inside a Salkum-Onalaska area home. Found dead were David West Sr., 52, David J. West Jr., 16, and Tony E. Williams, 50, of Randle. Denise Salts, 52, survived a gunshot wound to her face.

The former Onalaska man was arrested and jailed four days later.

His former cell mate Ryan J. McCarthy, 29, of Redmond, is also charged in the case. His trial is set for the week of October 10.

News brief: Drive-by shooting charge dropped against third suspect in Chehalis case

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – One of four individuals initially believed to be inside a Chevrolet Blazer during a drive-by shooting last summer in Chehalis was sentenced to jail today, but not for drive-by shooting as she was previously charged.

Christina Palomares, 24, of Tenino, was arrested in mid-August after the incident on Southwest William Street. A .45 caliber round found at the scene missed several people standing outside but struck an unoccupied parked vehicle.

Authorities described the shooting as related to a debt owed to somebody called “Candy man” and perpetrated by gang members of the LVL, or Little Valley Lokotes. Chehalis police originally believed the mother of three was the driver.

In a plea deal, Palomares pleaded guilty today to two counts of malicious prosecution. She was sentenced in Lewis County Superior Court to 90 days in jail.

She lied about who was in the vehicle, Deputy Prosecutor Colin Hayes said this afternoon. There was some question about if she was even in the SUV, he said.

“We’re not sure who was in the driver’s seat,” he said.

Palomares is the third original suspect against whom drive-by charges have been dropped in the case.

Juan Valentino Vasquez was released in March. Last fall, drive-by shooting charges were dismissed against Ruben Alberto Palomares, the husband of Christina Palomares.

Remaining as a suspect in the shooting is Andrew Morales-Loberg, of Chehalis.

He has not yet been picked up in the case, but Hayes said today Morales-Loberg may be currently in the Yakima County Jail, but that wasn’t yet confirmed.

If he is there, the warrant is still active so he would be sent to Lewis County when Yakima is done with his case there, Hayes said.

The alleged target pointed to then 19-year-old  Morales-Loberg as the shooter, according to charging documents.

News brief: Cows fall from truck along U.S. Highway 12

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Police stopped a driver somewhere near Mossyrock after he drove west on U.S. Highway 12 with cows falling out the back of his trailer last night.

Some five animals tumbled onto the roadway as he traveled about 13 miles through Glenoma, according to the Washington State Patrol.

Troopers called just before midnight said one cow died and four were loose, Trooper Ryan Tanner said today.

Morton Police Chief Dan Mortensen said the driver was pulling a stock trailer with load of cows and apparently both doors came open somewhere around Kiona Road west of Randle.

He didn’t know the extent of their injuries.

There were no reports of other motorists colliding with the cows.