Thursday, October 24, 2013

Mix-Ups and Melees in Washington State

"Wrong body in casket stuns Wash. family" The Chronicle, October 24, 2013

CHEHALIS, Wash. — The family of a deceased man wants to know how the wrong body ended up in his casket at his funeral.

Family members of Jerry Moon were horrified Monday when they looked in the casket and saw the body of another man, The Chronicle reported Tuesday. They have hired a lawyer and asked the state Department of Licensing to investigate....

Moon’s son, Brian, of Chehalis said he learned from Ken Dahl, the president of Dahl McVicker Funeral Home, that his dad had been cremated.

‘‘My dad feared cremation,’’ Moon said. ‘‘He spent a lot of time and money and he wanted to be buried next to his father and mother.’’

Meanwhile, the man who had been scheduled to be cremated, Robert Petitclerc, was placed in Moon's casket for the funeral in Chehalis. ‘‘That poor guy was dressed in my father’s clothes in front of hundreds of people,’’ Moon said.

After the mistake was discovered, Petitclerc was cremated.

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It was a labeling error?

"Police end melee in Wash. college town" Associated Press, October 14, 2013

SEATTLE — Hundreds of college-age revelers in Washington state — thwarted in efforts to continue a large party — threw projectiles at police, who responded with pepper spray to disperse them, authorities said.

Multiple partiers were arrested during the melee late Saturday and early Sunday in Bellingham, according to police Sergeant Mike Scanlon. ‘‘There was drinking, it became disorderly and pretty much an out and out riot,’’ he said.

He said the unrest began as police dispersed a noisy party that had drawn a few hundred people.

Lauren Boushey, 20, a Western Washington University junior who was at the apartment complex party, said it broke up around 9 p.m. and police officers politely asked people to go home.

‘‘It was set up to be . . . this really nice night and nothing reckless or ridiculous like it turned into,’’ she said Sunday, noting that the party wasn’t connected to the riots and that people lingered and a crowd started forming a block away.

Many of the revelers then moved to nearby Laurel Park, where they were joined by even more people, Scanlon said, calling it a ‘‘large, intoxicated, disorderly crowd.’’

The situation ‘‘finally boiled over,’’ he said. ‘‘They began hurling projectiles at police.’’

Up to 500 people had converged on the park as police worked to disperse them, at one point using pepper spray, Scanlon said. It took about 45 minutes to clear the area and restore order.

Boushey said she saw several people throwing bottles and beer cans at police officers and provoking them. She saw multiple officers get hit by bottles.

‘‘They got this horrible ignorant mob mentality,’’ she said. ‘‘It was so sad and disrespectful to watch.’’

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And yet pot is the big problem, right?

"Wash. state shooting leaves 5 dead" Associated Press, April 23, 2013

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — A man fatally shot his live-in girlfriend at an apartment south of Seattle then killed three men, including a neighbor who told others to call 911 and retreated inside his unit before the gunman blasted open the door with a shotgun and opened fire, authorities said Monday.

The 28-year-old suspect was later shot and killed in a parking lot by responding officers.

‘‘We believe this is a domestic violence homicide,’’ Federal Way Police Chief Brian Wilson said at a news conference.

Police encountered a chaotic situation in Federal Way on Sunday night when they responded to reports of gunshots. The suspect confronted arriving officers with a shotgun in a stairwell then fled to the parking lot after officers fired at him, Wilson said. He was killed on the ground while reaching for a handgun....

Meaning he was under arrest and unarmed when they killed him.

Police were still piecing together information but believe the suspect shot his girlfriend in their apartment then killed the two younger men during an argument after he left the unit.

The relationship between the suspect and those two men wasn’t clear.

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I hope they got the right bodies in the correct caskets.

"Wash. man pleads guilty in grandparents’ killings" October 05, 2013

SEATTLE — A Washington state man who killed his grandparents with a shoelace after they threw him a party to welcome him home from prison has entered a modified guilty plea to charges of aggravated first-degree murder.

Michael Chadd Boysen faces life in prison without the possibility of release when he is sentenced Oct. 18. He admitted Friday in King County Superior Court that a jury likely would convict him in the March 9 strangulation deaths of Robert R. and Norma J. Taylor at their Renton home.

Boysen was arrested three days later after a standoff at a Lincoln City, Ore., motel. He had taken cash and credit cards from the home.

Boysen had been released from prison the day before the killings after serving time for attempted burglary.

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Related:

"A man who strangled and robbed his grandparents after they celebrated his release from prison was sentenced Friday to life behind bars at a court hearing punctuated by his profanity-riddled outburst."

What was he expecting, mercy and a dismissal?

"Teen arrested in WWII veteran’s killing" by Nicholas K. Geranios |  Associated Press, August 24, 2013

SPOKANE, Wash. — Police have arrested one of two teens suspected of fatally beating an 88-year-old veteran of World War II who had survived the battle for Okinawa.

Police contend that two 16-year-old boys approached Delbert Belton in his car at random on Wednesday night outside an Eagles Lodge as he was waiting for a friend.

Belton was found by police with head injuries and died in the hospital Thursday.

Belton’s death has struck a chord nationally and sparked outrage on social media....

Police Chief Frank Straub said there was no information that the attack was motivated by anything other than robbery. Police were offering no details about the crime itself....

Straub identified the suspect still at large as Kenan D. Adams-Kinard, 16. Even though he is a juvenile, his name was released because he is a danger to the community, Straub said.

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MoreTeen arrested in beating death of World War II veteran

"Second teen arrested in beating death of World War II veteran" Associated Press,  August 27, 2013

SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane police on Monday arrested a second teen suspect in last week’s beating death of an 88-year-old World War II veteran who authorities say probably fought back against his attackers. The second suspect was arrested without incident early Monday morning at a friend’s house in Spokane, police said. The first suspect turned himself in last week.

Both suspects are 16 years old and face charges of murder and robbery in the death of Delbert Belton last Wednesday.

Belton, who was wounded in the battle of Okinawa, was beaten to death in his vehicle as he waited for a friend in the parking lot of an Eagles Lodge in north Spokane.

Police Chief Frank Straub said it appeared that Belton fought back against his attackers, and that may have contributed to the severity of the beating his received.

The first suspect surrendered to authorities last Thursday night, and is in the Spokane County Jail. His identity has not been released because he is a juvenile.

The second suspect was arrested in a basement apartment in Spokane just after 3 a.m. Monday. His identity and photograph were released as police searched for him, but the Associated Press, which typically does not identify juveniles accused of crimes, is no longer using his name because he is in custody. Three other juveniles with him were arrested for investigation of rendering criminal assistance, a felony, Straub said. 

Like we don't already know?

Straub said police received a tip early Monday about the location of the second suspect.

‘‘The motive for this attack was robbery,’’ Straub said. ‘‘There is no gang activity associated with this incident.’’ Belton’s wallet was taken, Straub said.

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"Woman dies in Washington avalanche, 1 missing" Associated Press, April 15, 2013

SNOQUALMIE PASS, Wash. — A woman who had been buried in five feet of snow has died, and one man was still missing Sunday after a pair of spring avalanches struck separate groups hiking in the mountains east of Seattle, authorities in Washington state said. 

From the excessive snowpack due to a rough winter.

Sergeant Katie Larson, of the King County Sheriff’s Office, said a rescue team worked through the night in a blizzard to carry the female snowshoer off the mountain....

A blizzard? In April?

‘‘The conditions yesterday were horrific,’’ Larson said Sunday....

Meanwhile, the search for a hiker who was swept down the mountain in a separate avalanche at Granite Mountain was suspended indefinitely because of poor weather.

He was with two friends when the avalanche took them 1,200 feet down the mountain....

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What is with all the avalanches in this age of global fart-mist?

"Northwest storms spawn rare tornado" Associated Press, October 01, 2013

SEATTLE — A powerful storm dumped a record amount of rain in the Pacific Northwest, knocked out power to thousands, and churned up a rare tornado Monday that ripped a hole in the roof of an industrial plant near Seattle.

The most dramatic damage was in Frederickson, south of Tacoma, where the wind uprooted trees and tore a jagged hole in the roof of the Northwest Door manufacturing plant.

‘‘It looked from the inside like a wave going along. You could actually see the roof flexing,’’ said Jeff Hohman, president of Northwest Door.

The National Weather Service confirmed the winds that damaged the industrial buildings were a tornado.

No one was injured.

The tornado also caused minor damage to a nearby Boeing factory.

Parts of the Northwest got more rain in a day or two over the weekend than typically falls in the entire month.

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The flooding was a one-day wonder, huh?

"Court system hacked in Wash. state" by Rachel La Corte |  Associated Press, May 10, 2013

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington state Administrative Office of the Courts was hacked sometime between last fall and February, and up to 160,000 Social Security numbers and 1 million driver’s license numbers may have been accessed during the data breach of its public website, officials said Thursday.

Court officials said they have only confirmed that 94 Social Security numbers were obtained and they do not think the larger number was compromised, but they wanted to alert the public to the possibility as a precaution.

The broader information ‘‘just happened to be on a server in an area that was accessed,’’ said Veronica Diseth, director of the courts’ information services division.

The breach occurred because of vulnerability in an Adobe Systems Inc. software program, ColdFusion, that has since been patched, court officials said. The hacking occurred sometime after September but was not caught until February, they said.

Adobe spokeswoman Heather Edell noted that the issue has been resolved. 

I'm sure it was just kids having fun.

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