HOLE CUT IN FLOOR TO RETRIEVE WANTED MAN FROM CRAWL SPACE
• Police last night found the 24-year-old defendant wanted after fleeing a courtroom last week, hiding in the crawl space under his parent’s Centralia home. Officers at about 11:45 p.m. went to the house on the 100 block of West Roanoke Street and were told Ryan W. Aumiller was not there but they could come in and take a look around, Sgt. Brian Warren said. They suspected he was under the house but when they contacted him by cell phone, he insisted he was somewhere else, Warren said. After about a half hour of negotiating, they gave him a countdown, telling him a police dog would be sent under the house if he didn’t come out, according to Warren. Warren’s K-9 partner Kayo located Aumiller, who stopped responding to officers and was in too tight of quarters to get to, according to Warren. The resident used a skill saw to cut a hole in a bedroom floor and Aumiller was “extracted” that way, according to authorities. Aumiller was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital to be treated for a dog bite and a possible drug overdose, according to Warren. He was transferred to the jail this morning.
CHEHALIS RESIDENT: DRUG MONEY STOLEN
• Police are still waiting to hear back from a 25-year-old Chehalis man who called 911 on Monday night and said he was assaulted by a man who stole $100 from him that was intended to purchase drugs. “It appears they were going to buy drugs, the suspect punched the vicim and took his money,” Officer Gwen Carrell said this morning. The man told police he got out the car from the suspect and walked home. The victim was intoxicated and asked to come back after he sobered up to give a better statement of what happened, she said.
GUN THEFT
• Several firearms were among the valuables stolen in a burglary on the 1000 block of Highway 603 outside Chehalis, the Lewis County Sheriff’s office reported yesterday. A deputy called to the home on Monday evening was told it happened sometime between 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. that day. Among the missing weapons were a Bushmaster AR15, a Mossberg shotgun, a rifle and a pistol, as well as several more guns from a bedroom, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. Also taken, a Dell laptop computer, a 40-inch television, a Blu-ray player and other items, according to the sheriff’s office.
CRIME STOPPERS WANTS TO SOLVE SEMINARY HILL BURGLARY
• Lewis County Crime Stoppers is hoping for tips that will lead detectives to whoever was behind a residential burglary last month in Centralia and got away with an estimated $2,900 of valuables including a .22 pistol, prescription medications, computer equipment, jewelry and Nikon binoculars. The break-in at the 2600 block of Seminary Hill Road occurred between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on April 24, according to Crime Stoppers. The organization takes anonymous tips at 1-800-748-6422 and pays up to $1,000 for information leading to the clearance of crimes.
METAL THEFT
• An 18-year-old Longview man was arrested in connection with iron pipes from his parents Toledo-area home that were taken to a Longview recycler, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office said Laine C. Buck unloaded about 600 pounds of the metal in just one of the trips they say he made. He was booked into the Lewis County Jail on Monday for second-degree theft.
GARDENING THEFT
• Police were called about 1:30 p.m. yesterday to the 700 block of Southwest Cascade Avenue in Chehalis where someone had stolen a weed eater and gas can.
CAR PROWL
• Centralia police took a report about 11:30 a.m. on Monday that someone stole a purse from a vehicle while its owner was shopping at the 500 block of Harrison Avenue.
• Police were called to a parking lot at Northeast Division Street in Chehalis about 9:20 a.m. on Monday after someone got into a locked van and stole prescription Hydrocodone. A door handle was damaged, according to the Chehalis Police Department.
WOMAN’S MISSING LAPTOP RETURNED
• Chehalis police got a phone call on Monday that somebody had found a laptop computer in a parking lot on the 100 block of West Main Street the previous Friday. An officer left a message about it with a woman who previously reported she misplaced her computer when she took it out of her vehicle after an accident, according to Officer Gwen Carrell.
DRUGS
• A 24-year-old woman was arrested just before midnight for possession of heroin following contact with police at the 100 block of East Roanoke Street in Centralia. Kari N. Driver was booked into the Lewis County Jail, according to the Centralia Police Department. Driver is to be released without charges pending further investigation.
• Centralia police reported they arrested a 22-year-old Napavine man on Monday night at the 2500 block of North National Avenue for possession of methamphetamine. Clifford R. Amos was booked into the Lewis County Jail after contact with an officer about 8:30 p.m., according to the Centralia Police Department.
ASSAULT
• Chehalis police were called to Green Hill School on Monday afternoon after a 16-year-old student-inmate allegedly kicked a staff member in the leg. The case will be referred to prosecutors for a possible charge of custodial assault, according to Chehalis police.
ANIMAL CRIMES
• Police took a report about 5:45 p.m. Monday from the 1200 block of Alder Street in Centralia that someone shot a female’s dog with a pellet gun. It did not need medical attention, according to police. The investigation was not yet finished.
• A Packwood resident is getting a fine after his black labrador bit a 70-year-old man in a wheel chair who was on his way to the post office yesterday, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. It happened near the 12,000 block of U.S. Highway 12 . The victim was taken to Morton General Hospital with two puncture wounds and a hematoma, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said.
• Morton police were called to investigate a report of several raccoons in a tree behind a residence on the 300 block of Adams Avenue about 5:30 in the morning one day last week. The animals fled prior to the officer’s arrival, according to police.
VEHICLE FIRE
• A Chehalis man escaped injury when his pickup truck burnt up last night as he was heading home from Stan Hedwall Park on Rice Road. Matt Wilkes said he smelled gas and thought he’d “baby it home” but then the 1989 Ford F-150 caught fire about a mile up the road. Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Casey Beck said the cab of the vehicle was engulfed in flames before crews extinguished the fire. Beck blamed a fuel leak.
SUSPICIOUS FIRE CENTRALIA
• Firefighters doused a blaze in a large shipping container behind a home on the 2400 block of Seward Avenue in Centralia about 8 o’clock last night. Police talked with a 14-year-old boy who admitted to starting the fire on his friend’s property, according to Riverside Fire Authority assistant Chief Rick Mack. The case will be referred for potential charging, according to police, but authorities would like to get the teenager diverted in their Juvenile Fire Setters Program, Mack said. The contents of the container were mostly refuse, Mack said.
COUPLE ESCAPES HOUSE FIRE
• A problem in an HVAC system appeared to be behind a house fire on Monday west of Millersylvania State Park, according to West Thurston Regional Fire Authority. Firefighters from Rochester, Little Rock and four other area departments responded to the approximately 3:40 p.m. call, according to Lt. Lanette Dyer. Two adults alerted by a smoke alarm escaped without injury from the tri-level home on the 10900 block of Lone Tree Lane Southwest, according to Dyer. She described the damage as moderate.