Lewis County Sirens.com

Courtesy photo by Centralia Police Department

Updated at 3:31 p.m.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

One shot was fired when a masked man was discovered inside Salewsky’s Jewelry shop in downtown Centralia this morning.

Police are looking for two cars that fled the scene heading north.

Officers called about 7 a.m. don’t know if the intruder was injured, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Police say a relative of the owner was asleep upstairs and confronted a subject who was attempting to steal jewelry from a showcase, ordering the intruder to stop and firing one round.

The intruder escaped by crawling through an opening cut into the wall from an empty neighboring business, according to police.

Two males were seen running from the area, both wearing ski-type masks, according to police.

Salewsky’s is on the 200 block of North Tower Avenue.

It’s not known yet if anything was actually taken from the business, according to Sgt. Stacy Denham. Detectives are at the scene this morning, he said. Inventory is being taken, but it seems as though the burglars had just begun, and dropped some or much of the loot, according to police.

It occurred about 6:30 a.m. The man who lives upstairs and awoke to noises called the owner first, who responded to the shop and then police were notified, according to Denham.

The two males ran to a parking lot east of the store about a block away and got into two cars, each of which had a female driver waiting, according to police.

A passerby smoking a cigarette as he waited for a ride thought it was odd because both were wearing ski masks, according to police.

The cars are described as: possibly a red newer model Mercedes CLK with no front license plate but a rear plate in which some of the figures were something like AK77, according to police.

The other vehicle was possibly a silver newer Toyota Scion FRS, two-door coupe – or a Subaru BRZ – with no license plates visible. Both cars had tinted windows, according to the witness.

Police are asking anyone who sees the vehicles to call 911 and report their location.

Denham said the burglars got into Salewsky’s by somehow entering a vacant adjacent business to the north and breaking through the wall that separates the two businesses. A hole cut in the sheetrock  with unknown tools was just large enough for a small person to crawl through, he said.

The intruder who was confronted was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt and a dark stocking mask, police said. Police don’t know if the bullet hit him.

The relative who fired the gun was not injured, according to police.

One of the subjects whose face was exposed to the passerby was described by police as a white male who appeared to be 20 to 30 years old.

Centralia police say the getaway cars looked like these.

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By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Chehalis police are investigating the possible theft of money from an account meant to cover expenses for the W.F. West High School class of 2013’s all-night party after commencement.

Tonya Burk, a Chehalis woman whose son is a senior, said some of the other parents recently asked her to audit the group’s records.

Burk said parents were surprised a few months ago to learn there was less than $8,000 saved up, when they thought it would be closer to $16,000.

A big red flag was raised when Security State Bank closed the account and contacted one of the parents in January, she said. Police were contacted shortly after that, she said.

Chehalis Police Department detective Sgt. Gary Wilson declined to offer much detail: “It’s an ongoing investigation,” Wilson said this morning.

Chehalis School District Superintendent Ed Rothlin said the school is not involved in the finances; it’s a privately held account that comes from a tradition of parents who collectively begin fundraising during their children’s freshman year to pay for graduation-related activities.

Burk said the efforts for her son’s class began when he was in eighth grade. Some parents paid “dues” each year, and they also held car washes and spaghetti feeds, conducted flower sales, put on haunted houses and did fireworks sales, she said.

She admitted it was somewhat of a loose-knit group, until recently. Since January, parents have pulled together and raised $7,000, she said.

“We don’t have enough totally, but we’re coming close, which is phenomenal,” Burk said.

The money this year is expected to pay for a mother-father barbecue, the baccalaureate gathering and the senior trip.

There are almost 270 seniors this year, according to Burk.

After graduation on June 8, the plan is to put them on charter busses and take them to a place called Bullwinkle’s near Portland, a venue with indoor laser tag, bowling, music and an arcade, she said.

Then they’ll travel to a trampoline park and return in the morning to a breakfast at the school, according to Burk.

“This is supposed to be a fun, safe trip where they can act like kids one last time,” she said.

Burk said the account wasn’t set up with a requirement of having two signers for withdrawals, which she called a mistake.

A one-time local volunteer of the year will be trying to work with school officials to find ways to pass along guidelines to the parents of future graduating classes, in hopes of preventing reoccurrences, she said.

“Witnesses said they heard ‘bang, revving, bang, revving, then a crash’.” – Officer Buster. / Courtesy photo by Andy Jacaway

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

An elderly driver accidentally rammed a building three times yesterday before the front end of his Cadillac broke through an exterior wall scattering shoppers at the VF Factory Outlet in Centralia.

Nobody was injured, even though it was a fairly busy day, according to Centralia Police Department Sgt. Carl Buster.

The Longview man, 90, and his wife were still sitting in the vehicle when police arrived, with the nose of the sedan inside the store, according to police.

“It was fortunate, not a single person got hurt,” Buster said.

Police were called about 2:15 p.m. to the 100 block of High Street, just east of Interstate 5.

The couple had finished shopping and were exiting a parking spot in front of the store, Buster said.

Witnesses outside told police the car backed up, struck a vehicle behind it, shoving it into a second vehicle and then the man put his car in drive and went forward, jumping over the curb and hitting the building, according to Buster.

Witnesses said the engine was revved up really high, Buster said.

“One witness said the guy backed up four or five feet and then hits the building a second time,” Buster said. “He backs up for a third time, and this time he goes through the wall like two feet into the store.”

People inside the store were crying, saying they had no idea what was happening, Buster said.

Sarah Cain said it seemed as though an angry customer had decided to ram the building on purpose, and she watched as items tumbled off a nearby shelf.

It sounded like a bomb going off, Cain said. She estimated there were about 50 customers inside.

“By the third time, people were running out of the building screaming,” she said.

The damage to the Cadillac was surprisingly minimal, but it left a hole in the stucco wall about the size of the hood of a car, Buster said.

The car was towed though, because it lost some fluids, he said.

Officers decided not to ticket the man because it was on private property and there was no criminality involved.

“He said, ‘That car is so quiet and sound proof; I couldn’t hear the engine revving’,” Buster said. “He thought he was pushing the brake.”

Damage to the car was minimal. “It would have been a great Cadillac commercial.” – Officer Buster. / Courtesy photo by Megan Wilber