Posts Tagged ‘news reporter’

Former Yard Bird manager pleads guilty as charged in theft from business

Wednesday, August 27th, 2014

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The now-former manager at Yard Birds who admitted to police he pocketed thousands of dollars on the job saying he’d gone bankrupt and was behind in his medical bills pleaded guilty today and is working to pay the money back.

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David E. Briscoe

David E. Briscoe, 58, was charged in April with first-degree theft. He appeared out-of-custody this morning in Lewis County Superior Court.

His lawyer David Brown said he is trying to sell some property, to make restitution.

The Centralia man was responsible for managing the business’s swap meet area, vendors, storage units and recreational vehicle spaces on the property at the 2100 block of North National Avenue in Chehalis, according to police.

In his written statement read aloud by Judge James Lawler, Briscoe said he collected rent payments and kept them, and that it went on for three years, resulting in significant financial harm to the victim.

The crime, with the major economic offense enhancement, carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, or as little as zero to 90 days in jail given his lack of a criminal history, the judge said.

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Mark McClain said he plans to ask for one year and a day, while defense attorney David Brown will be requesting something less.

He was not sentenced today, but a date was set for Sept. 25, when they would meet again and schedule the hearing.

They are giving it some time, to see if over the next couple of months Briscoe can get prosecutors to change their mind about their recommendation, McClain said.

McClain said he’s not sure how much money was stolen, but thinks it could be more than $40,000, and said Briscoe has indicated it was at least $20,000.

•••

For background, read “Police: Yardbirds employee stole thousands of dollars from business” from Tuesday April 29, 2014, here

One dead in fiery plane crash in Chehalis

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014
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A small plane and parked vehicles burn in the parking lot of Chehalis Collision Center. / Courtesy photo by Martha Harjo

Updated at 9:34 p.m.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A small plane crashed this evening into a parking lot across Interstate 5 from the Chehalis Airport, killing its pilot.

It struck two pickup trucks which caught fire, sending a column of black smoke into the sky at the scene just southeast of the Chamber of Commerce Way freeway interchange.

“All I have now is witnesses saw it took off at the airport and saw it go up and come down,” Chehalis Police Department Sgt. Gwen Carrell said. “It was a kit plane.”

The pilot’s family was at the airport when it took off, she said.

Firefighters called about 6:48 p.m. to the 900 block of Maryland Avenue were still spraying water and foam onto the vehicles more than a half hour later.

“I was just getting ready to water my flowers and I heard a big crash, kaboom,” nearby neighbor Judy Martin said. “I saw all this huge black smoke and then heard another explosion.”

Chehalis Fire Department Chief Rob Gebhart said it was only the one victim involved.

The two trucks were fully engulfed in flames, he said.

“I started putting out the fire on the pickups and kept thinking I was going to come around the corner and see a plane, but I didn’t, because there wasn’t much left,” Gebhart said.

Chehalis police were taking initial photographs and interviewing witnesses from the scene, as well as some who had been driving on the freeway. A representative with the Federal Aviation Administration is expected in the morning.

Numerous individuals from the neighborhood gathered on the sidewalk and street trying to get a glimpse of the goings on behind the chain-link fenced lot where it happened, belonging to the relatively new auto body business Chehalis Collision Center.

Wendy Cline who has lived on the corner for most of her life with a view of the small airport said she could only recall one time when a plane crashed.

“It ran off the end of the runway, I think,” Cline said. “It’s sad, it’s so sad.”

Gebhart said it was perhaps 10 years ago, when a Navy plane that came to give rides to the public crashed as it landed, because its landing gear wouldn’t come down. But nobody died, he said.

He couldn’t recall a fatal crash at the small but busy airport during his 27 years with the fire department, he said.

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Firefighters and aid arrive to the scene of small plane crash in Chehalis. / Courtesy photo by Amanda Moore

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Firefighters continue to put water and foam on two trucks and what’s left of a small airplane in the parking lot of Chehalis Collision Center. 

Sharyn’s Sirens: Daily police and fire roundup

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Updated at 3:43 p.m.

UNWELCOME VISITOR

• Chehalis police were called about 12:20 a.m. today to the Chehalis Avenue Apartments where a porcupine wandered up a stairwell. An officer used a broom to nudge the animal away from the buildings so it could return to where ever it came from, according to police. “We don’t handle those, we don’t pick them up,” detective Sgt. Gary WIlson said. “We just try and get them to move on their way.”

BURGLARY CENTRALIA

• Someone stole a backpack from a garage on the 400 block of West Pine Street in Centralia, according to a report made to police about 1:30 p.m. yesterday.

THEFT CENTRALIA

• Police were called to the 600 block of South Tower Avenue at 5 p.m. yesterday because an 18-pack of beer was stolen.

FRAUD CENTRALIA

• Police took a report from the 1100 block of West Chestnut Street in Centralia yesterday regarding an individual receiving a  fraudulent check in the mail which was part of a scam.

VEHICLE PROWL

• A woman called Chehalis police yesterday after discovering her wallet was missing from the glovebox of her vehicle. She believed it was taken the day before while parked at the 500 block of West Main Street, according to the Chehalis Police Department.

VANDALISM

• Centralia police took a report from the 500 block of West Main Street yesterday of spray paint on a building and a vehicle that was scratched during the night.

DRUGS

• A 21-year-old Chehalis resident on a bicycle contacted by an officer about 1:40 a.m. today near Southwest 12th Street and McFadden Avenue was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and booked into the Lewis County Jail. Reid N. Conrad was also wanted by Centralia police for an incident there, according to police. Conrad was charged in Lewis County Superior Court today with drug possession and also second-degree robbery in connection with a wallet snatched from the hand of an individual about 8 p.m. on Saturday at the 1200 block of Mellen Street in Centralia. He was ordered held on $25,000 bail.

GRASS, DUCK BLINDS BURN

• It might have been a spark from a piece of equipment or something similar that ignited a grass fire yesterday just west of Intestate 5 in Chehalis, according to the Chehalis Fire Department. Firefighters called about 3 p.m. to the 900 block of Northwest Airport Road found a lot of smoke and football-sized field mostly already burned, according to Fire Capt. Casey Beck. Someone had been tilling the ground, he said. The area was surrounded by a dirt field, so it wasn’t threatening any structures, he said. Except, three duck hunting blinds made from vegetation were burnt up, according to Beck.

AUTO THEFT

• Centralia police took a report of a vehicle stolen from the 1100 block of Harrison Avenue just before 3 o’clock this morning. It turned up later south of Chehalis after being involved in a collision, without any driver, according to the Centralia Police Department.

ZOOM ZOOM

• A 25-year-old Winlock man was arrested overnight after a deputy spotted him speeding then run a stop sign at North Military and Anterim Roads north of Winlock. Despite the deputy’s lights and sirens, the vehicle sped about 300 yards to the east end of Anterim Road into a driveway, where the driver hopped out and took off running, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. It happened about 11:30 p.m. Containment was set up by arriving officers, and a police dog was called but a deputy took the suspect into custody when he was spotted walking in the area, according to the sheriff’s office. Nicolas Dodrill was booked into the Lewis County Jail for a warrant and the sheriff’s office will recommend he be charged also with attempted eluding, Chief Criminal Deputy Gene Seiber said.

MAN ARRESTED AFTER NIGHTTIME PURSUIT

• A pursuit of a stolen car that left Tumwater at speeds of up to about 100 mph ended more than 30 miles later almost to Curtis over the weekend when the driver who had been turning his headlights on and off rolled the 1996 Honda Civic and crashed, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office. Twenty-four-year-old Jonathan M. Dice was hospitalized with possible neck, back and internal injuries, according to a deputy’s report. It began about 12:45 a.m. on Saturday and the chase included Tumwater police and Thurston deputies heading down back roads until Rochester where they continued onto Interstate 5 and a state patrol aircraft followed from above, according to the report. The car headed over Curtis Hill Road and crashed near Scholes Drive, responders said. Deputies planned to book Dice on possession of stolen property, attempting to elude. He was driving with a suspended license and had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant, according to the sheriff’s office.

BUY A LOTTERY TICKET

• A driver on his way to work escaped injury overnight when a semi truck drifted into his lane, sending his pickup truck over the concrete center barrier of Interstate 5 into the oncoming lanes where it landed wheels down and rolled to the far shoulder, according to the Chehalis Fire Department. It happened about 2:45 a.m. starting in the northbound lanes just prior to the exit 77 interchange in Chehalis. “He said he didn’t roll or flip, just went airborne,” Fire Capt. Casey Beck said. “There were a lot of things going right for him, for this not to have caused a double or triple fatality.” The man was not injured at all, Beck said, although his transmission was scraped as it didn’t clear the barrier entirely.

AND MORE

• And as usual, other incidents such as arrests for warrants, misdemeanor assault, protection order violation, driving with suspended license, of “Unknown, won’t give name” for obstructing; responses for alarms, disputes, shoplifting, suspicious circumstances, unlawful issuance of bad checks, discovery of a counterfeit $10 bill, collision on city street … and more.

Fires extinguished at Chehalis Industrial Park

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Firefighters from four departments responded overnight to a fire in the Chehalis Industrial Park at a tire recycling business.

Crews found a semi-trailer about half full of rubber shavings burning, flames from which spread to a conveyor-type piece of machinery, according to Lewis County Fire District 6.

The 1:20 a.m. incident on Melhart Road at Conrad Industries took about an hour to get under control, according to Chief Tim Kinder.

Nobody was hurt and the cause is under investigation, Kinder said.

Just yesterday evening, crews were called to the nearby Mohawk Industries on the 200 block of Downie Road where a small pile of foam beneath a hopper had ignited.

Employees had it nearly extinguished by the time the fire department arrived, Kinder said. Mohawk manufactures carpet padding, according to the chief.

“(It was) mostly smoke, not a lot of damage,” Kinder said.

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Contents of trailer at Conrad Industries are extinguished. / Courtesy photo by Lewis County Fire District 6.

Police pursuit of Tumwater robbery suspect ends on freeway in Centralia

Monday, August 25th, 2014

Updated at 3:25 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A high speed chase that ended on Interstate 5 in Centralia this morning began near Tumwater when a stranger at a woman’s doorstep demanded her car keys and money.

She had just opened her door to go to work and turned to get her purse when a man holding a small board over his head robbed her, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff’s Lt. Cliff Ziesemer said deputies called around 8:30 a.m. to the residence on the 4500 block of Black Lake Belmore Road Southwest learned that he grabbed the money and the 51-year-old woman threw the keys to her 2013 Subaru Forester out the door.

A neighbor hearing her calls for help briefly held the man at gunpoint but he fled, running down a fence and nearly hitting three people, Ziesemer said.

When the stranger got into the woman’s car, her dog jumped in as well, according to Ziesemer.

A nearby deputy gave chase and speeds reached as much as 125 mph down Interstate 5, according to the sheriff’s office.

An attempt to tap the fleeing car to spin it out of control failed to stop him, as did spike strips that flattened the two front tires near Grand Mound, according to Ziesemer.

“He continued about 100 mph on two flat tires,” Ziesemer said.

The Subaru rear-ended a sport utility vehicle just north of Centralia and finally the deputy used his patrol vehicle to pin the Subaru against the concrete barrier, according to authorities.

The driver, a 33-year-old Portland area man, was taken into custody, he said.

Ziesemer said he didn’t know exactly why the man did what he did.

Shawn B. Ollision was arrested and booked into the Thurston County Jail for eluding, robbery and other offenses including three counts of first-degree assault.

The 55-year-old Olympia woman whose Honda Pilot was struck on the freeway was transported to Providence Centralia Hospital as a precautionary measure, the Washington State Patrol reports. Both vehicles sustained what was described as reportable damage.

The Tumwater woman and her dog are doing okay, according to the sheriff’s office.

Sharyn’s Sirens: Daily police and fire roundup

Monday, August 25th, 2014

SUPER DISORDERLY SUBJECT

• A 52-year-old Centralia man who reportedly was yelling and screaming at people and threatening to kill them yesterday at the 700 block of South Tower Avenue in Centralia was arrested for harassment. Kenneth R. Meyers was booked into the Lewis County Jail following the approximately 11:20 a.m. incident, according to the Centralia Police Department.

ARREST FOR HAVING GUNS

• A 38-year-old Salkum man was arrested when deputies were called to a family dispute at the 100 block of Rebel Lane; as deputies learned he was a convicted felon but had in his home three rifles and two pistols. It happened on Friday afternoon, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. Troy Keene was booked into the Lewis County Jail for unlawful possession of firearms following the issuance of a search warrant and a look around the residence, according to the sheriff’s office.

MANDOLIN MISSING

• A deputy took a report about 2:30 yesterday afternoon of a just-discovered burglary at a home on the 100 block of Kiser Road in Ethel in which a mandolin and a wheelbarrow were among the items taken, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

STORAGE UNIT BURGLED

• Diving and fishing equipment were among the property stolen when someone forced their way into a storage locker on the 2500 block of Jackson Highway outside Chehalis. A deputy called to the facility on Friday concluded the break-in occurred sometime since  Aug. 13, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

VANDALISM

• Morton police were called after the discovery someone broke a window out of a vehicle inside a garage at the 100 block of Collar Avenue last Tuesday afternoon.

• Centralia police took a report yesterday of graffiti found on the side of a business at the 900 block of West Main Street.

CAR PROWL

• Someone prowled a vehicle parked at the 1000 block of Harrison Avenue in Centralia, according to a report made to police at about noon yesterday.

• Centralia police took a report yesterday of a car prowl on the 400 block of South Diamond Street that occurred a week ago.

• An individual reported a vehicle prowl about 12:30 p.m. yesterday from a parking lot on Northwest Louisiana Avenue in Chehalis.

• Chehalis police were called about a vehicle prowl on Northwest State Avenue on Friday morning.

HOME CATCHES FIRE

• A house fire in Grand Mound may have started in the kitchen area but worked its way up into the attic space on Saturday afternoon, according to West Thurston Regional Fire Authority. Crews were called just after 4:30 p.m. to the 18200 block of Guava Street, Chief Robert Scott said. Nobody was injured, according to the chief.

JUST THE CABLE GUY

• Morton police were called about 9 p.m. on Thursday regarding a suspicious person in a vehicle the area of Airport Way. Officers made contact with the person who identified himself as a subcontractor for the cable company, according to the Morton Police Department.

ZOOM ZOOM

• A driver traveling more than 100 mph down Interstate 5 lost control, struck a semi truck parked in the Maytown Rest Area and caught fire yesterday afternoon. The driver was able to get out and was transported to the hospital, according to the Washington State Patrol. The 2003 Mercedes Benz was consumed by flames.

AND MORE

• And as usual, other incidents such as arrests for driving with suspended license, disorderly conduct, shoplifting, 18-year-old reportedly punching holes in the walls of parent’s home; responses for alarms, disputes, suspicious circumstances, collision on city street, loud neighbor music … and more.

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A 2003 Mercedes Benz is extinguished after it ran into a parked truck and caught fire at the Maytown Rest Area. / Courtesy photo by Washington State Patrol

Sharyn’s Sirens: Daily police and fire roundup

Sunday, August 24th, 2014
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Flames rise from a house and surrounding brush in Centralia. / Courtesy photo by Cheyenne Bishop

CENTRALIA HOUSE CATCHES FIRE

• A vacant house at the end of Brotherson Road in Centralia was destroyed by fire overnight, drawing 11 firefighters from Riverside Fire Authority and the Chehalis Fire Department. Crews called about 2:20 a.m. found the single-story home fully involved in flames and the vegetation around it burning, according to Capt. Erik Olson. The residence had been unoccupied for some time and is in the area just east of Interstate 5 slated for a large commercial development project, according to the fire department. Nobody was injured. The fire investigator was able to find where the fire started but figuring out its exact cause will be difficult because of the amount of damage, according to Olson.

BICYCLE BANDIT

• Officers responded about 8 p.m. yesterday to the 1200 block of Mellen Street in Centralia where a male in his 20s reportedly snatched a wallet from its owner’s hand and fled on a bicycle.

MEDS MISSING

• Police were called about 4 p.m. yesterday regarding the theft of prescription medications from a home on the 1300 block of Harrison Avenue in Centralia. The case is under investigation, according to the Centralia Police Department.

VANDALISM

• Centralia police took reports on Friday morning of several buildings in the downtown area hit with graffiti, including on the 800 block of North Tower Avenue.

AND MORE

• And as usual, other incidents such as arrests for warrants, misdemeanor assault, driving under the influence, driving with suspended license; responses for misdemeanor theft, protection order violation, counterfeit bill … and more.