Updated at 8:53 p.m.
POLICE SEEKING NUDE NAPAVINE DRIVER
• A Napavine police officer was injured when he tripped while chasing a naked man through a field in the dark this weekend. “I’m still trying to piece a lot of it together,” Napavine Police Chief Chris Salyers said. It began around 10 p.m. on Friday with a call about a suspicious person in a car stopped in the middle of the road on the the 400 block of Eighth Avenue in Napavine, Salyers said. The officer and the motorist engaged in a short pursuit, like around the block, and when the man stopped, he was completely naked, Salyers said. The officer had put one cuff on the man when a struggle ensued and the man took off running, he said. When they came to a raised driveway, they both tripped and the man got away, he said. Salyers said he knows who the individual is but not why he was driving around nude. The police chief is putting together an arrest warrant this afternoon, the details of which weren’t shared.
SHOPPER’S BAG SPIRITED AWAY
• Police were called yesterday about a 71-year-old Centralia woman whose backpack had been stolen when she left it near the door of a Chehalis retailer while she shopped, as required by store policy. Information from the Dollar store at the Twin City Town Center showed a white male with long brown hair pulled back into a pony tail picked up the pack and then got into an older blue four-wheel drive pickup truck, according to the Chehalis Police Department. The theft had taken place two days earlier, according to police. Among the items she lost were clothing, identification, a bank card and cash, according to police.
DOMESTIC INCIDENTS
• Chehalis police were called about 11:30 p.m. yesterday to the 1700 block of South Market Boulevard by a woman regarding a physical dispute. The case is under investigation, according to the Chehalis Police Department.
• A 47-year-old Morton man who allegedly threatened to kill his girlfriend with a hammer was arrested yesterday after deputies were called to the 200 block of Riffe Hill Road. Arriving deputies found the victim bruised but otherwise unhurt and learned Adam P. Rambur had taken to the woods, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. He walked out and gave himself up when a police dog was brought in, Chief Criminal Deputy Gene Seiber said. Rambur was booked into the Lewis County Jail for second-degree assault, but prosecutors subsequently charged him instead with misdemeanor assault, felony harassment and unlawful imprisonment. Seiber said the suspect did not hit the woman with the hammer. His bail was set at $25,000 this afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court.
URINE TOSSED AT NURSE
• A 22-year-old homeless woman from Centralia was jailed for assault after she allegedly filled a urine sample cup as requested at Providence Centralia Hospital but threw it onto a nurse over the weekend. Charging documents indicate that late on Saturday night Erica A. Montes was arrested by an unspecified law enforcement agency for disorderly conduct and transported to the hospital to be medically cleared. Montes was booked into the Lewis County Jail and subsequently charged with third-degree assault. Given the unemployed young woman’s lack of criminal history, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer requested her bail be set with a $10,000 unsecured bond. A judge agreed.
TOOLS TAKEN
• A deputy took a report yesterday that someone stole several power tools from a home on the 700 block of Park Road in Vader sometime during the previous week, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. The loss is estimated at $800.
APPLIANCE GONE
• Someone stole a refrigerator and a shop vac from a home on the 100 block of Knowles Road outside Winlock sometime during the week that ended yesterday, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. A deputy responding yesterday noted the value was about $600.
MOTOR PARTS MISSING
• Centralia police said this morning someone got into a garage where an engine was being rebuilt on the 3000 block of Russell Road and stole a turbo and a manifold. A report taken on Friday morning indicates the loss is estimated at $2,500, according to the Centralia Police Department.
VEHICLE PROWL
• Police were called about 5:15 a.m. today to the 400 block of East Maple Street in Centralia by a woman who said someone stole her husband’s blue lunchbox out of his vehicle.
• Centralia police were called early yesterday morning by a citizen who said her boyfriend was holding a woman at gunpoint that he’d discovered going through his vehicle and an officer subsequently tracked down a woman hiding behind a woodpile in an alley near along the 1200 block of Elm Street. According to charging documents, the woman had fled south on Yew Street and when she was contacted, said she’d been hiding from her boyfriend. A police dog located a backpack she dropped along the way and inside was a glass pipe with suspected meth residue, according to the court documents. Anna M. Gibson, 31, from Winlock, was booked into the Lewis County Jail and charged today with possession of methamphetamine and second-degree vehicle prowl. Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher told a judge this afternoon Gibson had been accepted into Lewis County Drug Court but not yet undergone treatment. He asked a judge for $20,000 bail, indicating he’d been in contact with the drug court, and the thinking was to fold the new case into her existing case. “If she’s going to be a successful drug court candidate, she needs to be held in custody,” Meagher said. The judge agreed with the bail. Gibson is in drug court because of a charge of second-degree theft and organized retail theft, and has three previous drug convictions, according to charging documents.
FUEL THEFT
• Chehalis police took a report on Friday morning from the 2000 block of Northeast Kresky Avenue that someone siphoned gas from a vehicle belonging to the Lewis County Public Works Department.
VANDALISM
• Police were called about 7 a.m. yesterday to the 600 block of West Main Street where an employee of the Food Mart found someone had cut the front tire of their vehicle.
DISORDERLINESS
• A 36-year-old woman from Mossyrock was arrested for disorderly conduct following a report about 1:45 p.m. on Saturday that she was outside throwing her shoes at the jail in Chehalis. An arriving officer found her across Southwest Chehalis Avenue yelling at workers there, and the woman, who was speaking rapidly and not make any sense, then crossed the street forcing traffic to stop, according to the Chehalis Police Department. Heather L. Villalba was booked into the Lewis County Jail, according to police.
RUNNING OF THE BULL
• At least four Centralia police officers spent about an hour of their Saturday night trying to catch up to a bull that made its way from near the fairgrounds to an area north of Harrison Avenue just east of Interstate 5. It began with a call at 7:50 p.m. that the animal was behind a home on the 1500 block of South Gold Street, according to the Centralia Police Department. Residents reported it circling an apartment complex near Plummers Lake and trotting down and across Harrison Avenue to the Nike Outlet store and then detouring to Wendy’s burger restaurant and Papa Pete’s pizza place, followed by patrol cars with their lights activated. “They were trying to corral it, block it, so it would not get on to the freeway,” Officer Patty Finch said. “But we’re not bull catchers.” Finch said she couldn’t confirm if the animal swam from the lake’s boat launch or circled by land. The bull was last seen about 9 p.m. heading into the woods at Sunset Way off Eckerson Avenue, according to Finch. She said she didn’t know where it belonged.
SHERIFF’S OFFICE: SUSPECTS TRIES TO FIGHT DEPUTY
• The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reports this morning that the homeless person suspected of causing a brush fire in Onalaska on Friday morning was apprehended about five hours later, when he was located walking down Leonard Road. Luke U. Hall, 32, tried to fight a deputy and hit the deputy in the head, drawing several other deputies to physically take him into custody, Chief Criminal Deputy Gene Seiber said. Firefighters called about 7 a.m. that day to a previously logged and then replanted area near Middle Fork Road and Centralia-Alpha Road found a brush fire that encompassed an area of about 40 feet by 40 feet, as well as the remains of a tent, according to Lewis County Fire District 1. “It had gotten into a stump with a lot of pitch in it, so DNR also came out,” Fire Chief Mark Conner said. The sheriff’s office originally reported the fire as much larger. Authorities suspected Hall may have had a campfire going to keep warm. He was arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail for third-degree assault, felony harassment, resisting arrest, reckless burning and trespassing, according to Seiber.
COLLISION
• Firefighters were called about 3:25 p.m. yesterday when a motorcyclist struck a tree on Pleasant Valley Road near Conrad Road near Napavine. He was conscious and alert, but transported to Providence Centralia Hospital for suspected internal injuries, according to Lewis County Fire District 5.
AND MORE
• And as usual, other incidents such as arrests for warrants, shoplifting, driver in physical control of vehicle while intoxicated; responses for alarms, domestic dispute, misdemeanor assault, suspicious persons, collision on city street, counterfeit $20 bills getting passed, requests to have persons sleeping or intoxicated in public to be checked and / or move along, a late-night request for an officer by a slurring male from near a tavern who said they wouldn’t let him drink anymore, a possible house fire in Onalaska that turned out to be a smoker on the front porch … and more.
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