CENTRALIA MAN WHO REPORTED HE WAS KIDNAPPED FROM KMART FABRICATED STORY, POLICE SAY
• Chehalis police concluded an investigation yesterday of a man who said he was car jacked at gunpoint from K-Mart and forced to drive to Thurston County where he was pistol-whipped, robbed and dumped in the woods earlier this month. “It didn’t happen,” Chehalis detective Sgt. Rick McNamara said. Dennis E. Burns, 56, from Centralia, was arrested yesterday morning and booked into the Lewis County Jail for false reporting and obstructing a public servant, “Both gross misdemeanors,” McNamara said. “I wish they were felonies ’cause he wasted a lot of my time.” Burns made the report to the Chehalis Police Department on Sept. 3, saying the kidnapping occurred two days earlier from the Chehalis retailer. The sergeant said the primary indication the story wasn’t true was he obtained video showing Burns shopping at Sears at the Tacoma Mall during the same hours Burns claimed he was being car jacked in Chehalis. Burns also described his captors as cutting off his pony tail, which actually was missing when he made the report, McNamara said. The Centralia man couldn’t explain how he could be in two places at the same time, according to McNamara. The sergeant said he could only speculate about the motivation in making the report. Burns and Burns’ girlfriend said the supposed assailants stole his $400 rent money, he said.
SHOPPING SPREE ENDS WITH ARREST
• A 23-year-old Chehalis woman was arrested yesterday for identity theft and two related crimes for allegedly using somebody else’s credit card number and making an estimated $3,600 of transactions. It began Sept. 7 with a theft report from the 200 block of Panisco Road in Cinebar and ended yesterday when Andrea Harris, 23, was picked up at the Lucky Eagle Casino in Rochester, according to Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. She was booked into the Lewis County Jail, according to sheriff’s Cmdr. Steve Aust.
THEFTS
• Centralia police took a report yesterday morning of the theft of an undisclosed amount of money from a burglary at a business on the 700 block of Park Way.
• Centralia police took reports of five car prowls between Monday morning and this morning. Stereos were removed from two vehicles on the 1300 block of Delaware Avenue in incidents reported shortly before 7 a.m. today. On Monday morning on the 200 block of Jackson Street, a compound bow and a tool box were reported taken from a truck. Also Monday, medication was removed from a purse sitting in a vehicle on the 2000 block of Borst Avenue and a backpack was stolen from another vehicle on the 900 block of South Pearl Street, according to the Centralia Police Department.
• Chehalis police took a report yesterday of somebody breaking into a vehicle and stealing medication.
MISSED TURN CAUSES SEMI-TRUCK DRIVER THOUSANDS
• The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reported this morning the driver of the big rig that crashed and burned yesterday near milepost 6 of Bunker Creek Road outside of Chehalis suffered only minor cuts and bumps. Jerry Nolan, 56, of Hoquiam, was southbound when he failed to negotiate a corner, sheriff’s Cmdr. Steve Aust said. The 1997 Kenworth – pulling a lowboy trailer loaded with a dump truck – rolled over into a field, Aust said. Nolan was getting out the truck when it caught fire, according to Aust. The Kenworth was a total loss and the damage to the trailer and vehicle it was hauling was estimated at $10,000, he said.
“YOU CAN’T HIT THE POLICE”
• The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office reported this morning a 26-year-old man was found guilty by a jury of third-degree assault yesterday in Lewis County Superior Court. Garrick C. Wall, of Kirkland, was charged in May for an incident that occurred while a Chehalis police officer was making an arrest at a downtown bar, according to authorities. Officer Chris Taylor was assaulted. Police detective Sgt. Rick McNamara said the officer is fine. “He wasn’t really injured, but you can’t hit the police,” McNamara said this morning. Wall faces a sentence somewhere between nine and 12 months, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter