Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The parents of the 16-year-old Toledo boy accused of hitting his father in the head with a baseball bat are refusing to talk with police or prosecutors about the case.

The Toledo High School student was arrested in mid-July and charged in adult court with first-degree assault, a felony with a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Charging documents allege he came upon his parents arguing about the father’s extramarital affairs and struck his dad with a metal baseball bat.

When police and aid were called to the Toledo home, the father Leslie Bagley was unconscious on the floor with what was described as major trauma to his head, according to authorities. The mother appeared intoxicated, police noted.

Bagley, 55, was airlifted to Harbor Medical Center in Seattle that morning, July 19. Within days he was upgraded to satisfactory condition.

When Toledo Police Chief John Brockmueller traveled to the hospital to speak to Bagley, the mother Tena Bagley stopped him at the door and turned him away, according to court documents.

“I’m going to put a stop to this right now,” Tena Bagley is quoted as telling him. “I told you that I don’t want to give a statement and Les does not want to give one.

“You need to contact our attorney Chris Baum.”

Baum, who represents the teenager, has said in court the parents are upset the police report does not accurately reflect the situation.

Bail was set at $75,000, but a judge allowed the family to post $7,500 cash with the court and put up the grandfather’s property as security.

No contact orders are in place preventing the teen from communicating with his parents. A judge said the boy could stay with an adult brother.

Prosecutors write in court documents they have spoken with a family friend who says the couple is not releasing any information, even to their friends, “perhaps because they do not want police to have the information.”

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke said today the mother is a witness, the father the alleged victim and he needs to interview them, but he’s exhausted all avenues in trying to reach them.

“These are my witnesses, I need to talk to them,” he said. “They’re not talking.”

Lewis County Superior Court Judge Richard Brosey signed an order yesterday for the parents to appear for a deposition. O’Rourke said next week he will be scheduling the meeting.

The boy has pleaded not guilty. A trial is set for the week of Oct. 15.

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For background, read “Toledo teen charged in adult court for allegedly taking bat to father’s head” from Tuesday July 24, 2012, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

As many as 50 firefighters responded to a barn and wildfire that grew to as much as four acres today in the Curtis-Boistfort area.

Lewis County Fire District 13 was called about 1:20 p.m. to the blaze at the end of Hubbard Road.

The barn burned to the ground and the fire at one point threatened the house, District 5 Chief Eric Linn said.

Twenty-five to 30 personnel from the state Department of Natural Resources joined firefighters from Chehalis, Centralia and Napavine, Linn  said.

The flames got into grass, slash and trees, he said.

Local firefighters spent about five hours at the scene, leaving DNR out there around 6 p.m., according to Linn.

“We had some pretty significant concerns if we wouldn’t have been able to stop it at the ridge, it would have been quite an event,” he said.

Nobody was injured. Linn didn’t yet have a cause for the fire.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A Centralia woman was hospitalized for smoke inhalation after a fire broke out in her kitchen on the 800 block of South Silver Street yesterday afternoon.

The 28-year-old mother gathered up her three – or four – small children and got them outside, according to Riverside Fire Authority.

Firefighters called at 4:40 p.m. extinguished the blaze, according to Fire Capt. Terry Ternan.

There was moderate fire damage to the kitchen and light smoke damage throughout the one and a half story home, Ternan said.

Ternan said she was preparing to heat up tortillas but left the pan with oil unattended.

“She smelled smoke and saw the kitchen was on fire,” he said.

The house can’t be reoccupied until it’s repaired, he said.

“There were smoke detectors and they were functional,” Ternan said, noting he hopes that is a reminder for others of their value.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A man at the center of what police called mayhem outside a downtown Centralia establishment ended up hospitalized after an officer hit him in the head with a flashlight just before closing time on Sunday morning.

Rafael M. Pantoja, 45, Chehalis, was arrested for resisting and obstructing but the Centralia Police Department is canceling those charges and requesting Pantoja be charged with attempting to disarm an officer, police Sgt. Carl Buster said yesterday.

Police answered a call just after 2 a.m. that said  20 people were fighting outside at the 300 block of North Tower Avenue, according to Buster.

What they found when they arrived was a drunk patron who wanted to fight with security at El Amigos because they wouldn’t let him stay, Buster said.

El Amigos is a restaurant that is closed to minors sometimes on weekend nights, according to police.

“He’s not listening, his own people are holding him back, our officer holds a baton in front of the guy and the guy grabs the stick, almost gets it from the officer,” Buster said yesterday.

“They’re all drunk,” he said.

Centralia officers ended up hitting the guy with a stick a couple of times, and deploying a Taser which had no effect, according to Buster.

“It’s just brute force to get him into cuffs,” he said.

By the time it was over, a 29-year-old Rochester woman who allegedly shoved an officer in the chest was on the ground handcuffed. Pantoja was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital with a cut on his head, according to Buster.

After hours of waiting for Pantoja to be treated and discharged so they could book him, the doctors said they wanted to transfer the patient to an Olympia Hospital, so officers wrote him a citation and released him.

Buster wasn’t there, but as sergeant reviewed the reports on the incident.

He said some in the crowd were angry at police, and threatening to post video of the fight online.

Buster defended the flashlight to the head, saying the officer decided to end it, and wanted to stun the subject.

“Sometimes we have to use force, sometimes force doesn’t look good, it’s violent,” Buster said. Had the subject gotten the police baton, they could have been forced to shoot him to keep him from injuring others, Buster said.

No other injuries were reported.

Once in the patrol car, Pantoja began apologizing to police, Buster said. His current medical condition wasn’t readily available.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Authorities may never know why 16-year-old Tyler S. Gonzalez was laying on a county road in the middle of the night before he was run over and killed by a full-sized SUV, but they know he was drunk and had wandered away from an underage party where liquor had been supplied by adults.

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office is asking prosecutors to charge a pair of 22-year-old Chehalis women with furnishing liquor to a minor, a gross misdemeanor. The crime has a maximum penalty of 364 days in jail.

Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield called it a sad, tragic and preventable accident. The sheriff fixes the blame on both the Chehalis teenager who drank and the two women who bought alcohol for kids that night.

“The initial actions of these two women ultimately set things in motion for the tragedy to occur,” Mansfield stated in a news release.

The suspects, Talia Date and Megan Day have not been arrested.

The W.F. West High School sophomore died from multiple internal injuries about 2:30 a.m. on May 12 on Brockway Road near Chilvers in Adna, about a mile west of Interstate 5 at Chehalis. The Washington State Patrol said a 50-year-old Onalaska woman rounded a slight right hand curve when she hit him. They noted there are no street lights in the area and they did not expect to file any charges against the driver.

The sheriff’s office has said about 10 young people were drinking beer and hard liquor in a shop building that sits back from a home on the 100 block of Brockway Road. The parents were asleep in the house and unaware a party was in progress, the sheriff’s office has said.

Tyler’s blood alcohol level was measured at .17, according to the sheriff’s office. That’s more than twice the legal limit for driving.

Mansfield said investigators don’t really know why he was laying on the roadway. They don’t know if he was sleeping, passed out or perhaps laid down to rest, the sheriff’s said.

Tyler and another boy, both of whom were extremely intoxicated, walked away from the party, the sheriff said.

“We know some friends were looking for him, there was a mix up about who was with who,” he said.

The sheriff said the young women didn’t attend the gathering; one of them was a relative of one of the young men at the party.

Mansfield called purchasing alcohol for kids and kids drinking totally irresponsible behavior that led to the loss of a life.

“This is a serious problem in our community,” he said.

“So the message is, wise up folks,” he said. “The consequences for this are huge.”