Elderberry Street garage fire. / Courtesy photo by West Thurston Regional Fire Authority
GARAGE BURNS
• The cause of a garage fire yesterday afternoon in Grand Mound is under investigation. Crews called just after 4 p.m. to the 19000 block of Elderberry Street Southwest found the detached building fully involved in flames with a partial roof collapse, according to West Thurston Regional Fire Authority. The blaze was brought under control within about 15 minutes, Chief Robert Scott said. Nobody was injured, according to Scott.
THEFT
• Chehalis police were called yesterday regarding three local businesses receiving checks that may be from an account that has been compromised. The case is under investigation.
• Chehalis police took a report of a theft from a business on North National Avenue yesterday. The case is under investigation.
DRUGS
• A 15-year-old girl was arrested for having a marijuana bud in her purse while at a dance at Centralia Middle School last night. A faculty member noticed she left and went to the park area off the 900 block of Johnson Road, followed her and asked her to return, and then asked if she had anything in her purse, according to police. She pulled out a baggie of suspected marijuana, according to Officer John Panco.
VEHICLE PROWL
• Someone stole a Stihl chainsaw from a work truck at the 1000 block of Eckerson Road in centralia, according to a report made to police yesterday.
VANDALISM
• Police were called to a bank on the 600 block of South Tower Avenue in Centralia yesterday afternoon after damage was discovered on its outside ATM machine. It was scratched as though someone tried to pull the front of it open, according to the Centralia Police Department.
ACCIDENTS
• Chehalis police were called about 6:50 p.m. yesterday to the 100 block of North Market Boulevard where a van had taken out a fence and ended up wedged between a building and an embankment. The 16-year-old driver said it was difficult to get in reverse and he accidentally went forward instead, according to police.
• A 69-year-old Centralia woman was arrested for driving under the influence after she allegedly hit the viaduct near Kresky Avenue and then a light pole as she pulled into a Centralia parking lot yesterday evening. Dorothy J. Mills was booked into the Lewis County Jail, according to the Centralia Police Department. Mills also had a suspended license and an outstanding warrant, according to police.
• A 30-year-old Centralia man who was riding a bicycle and hit by a truck yesterday in Chehalis has been treated and released from the hospital. Police and aid called about noon yesterday to the 1500 block of North National Avenue found Thomas S. Simpson had been traveling north on the sidewalk when a Ford F450 pulled out from a parking lot. Simpson was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital, according to the Washington State Patrol. The truck was not damaged and its driver, Robert A. Steele, 51, from Centralia, was unhurt, according to the state patrol. The cause is under investigation and charges are pending, according to the investigating trooper.
OTHER
• Chehalis police responded just before 7 p.m. yesterday to a call in which a young woman on Northeast Jefferson Avenue heard what she thought was a gunshot and then a female screaming. Officers didn’t find the source of the gunshot noise but did locate a woman who said she was screaming because she was so excited her daughter got a job, according to the Chehalis Police Department.
AND MORE
• And as usual, other incidents such as arrests for warrants, driving with a suspended license, shoplifting; responses for alarms, a request to ask teenagers to stop scaring school children when the get let out of school, a request to check on a woman who is hanging around and talking to herself … and more.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter