Bulletin column - Oct. 14, 2010

Bond set at $250,000

A bond amount for pre-trial release of Nathan J. Cranfield, 21, suspect in an assault case involving an injured five month old Albion boy was set at $250,000 in a first court appearance Monday afternoon in Whitman County Superior Court. Cranfield was arrested and booked into jail Monday morning after he was questioned at Albion.

According to the arrest report he described a rocking motion he had used in the early morning hours in an effort to quiet the infant.

Cranfield was identified as the boyfriend of the infant’s mother. He told officers he and the baby’s mother alternated efforts to quiet the infant during the night. He said he realized the baby had stopped breathing after he put him back in his crib.

The report by Deputy Mike Bogenreif said he had received a call at 1:47 a.m. Monday that a baby had stopped breathing. Enroute to the Albion residence he learned the infant was being taken by EMT’s by ambulance to Pullman Regional Hospital.

The report said Bogenreif and Sheriff Brett Myers interviewed the baby’s mother and Cranfield.

The infant was flown to Sacred Heart Medical Center where doctors said he had sustained a brain injury and is in critical condition.

Storage building planned

Larry Harrison of St. John has applied for a building permit for construction of a 92 X 70 pole building in the area just west of the Walla Walla Highway bridge south of the Palouse River. The building will cover 6,440 square feet. Harrison told the city he plans to use the building for commercial storage for trailers, recreational vehicles and other equipment. Estimated cost of the project is $60,000.

Mike Baldwin of Viola, operating as Baldwin Building Co., will do the construction on the project. Design work was done by Wambeke Engineering.

The building will be on the leveled area west of the residential section in the River Drive area below the highway.

Hydrocodone nets 30 days

Austin G. Wertz, 18, the Lewiston driver who was stopped south of Colfax on Highway 195 July 23 and later faced drug charges, was sentenced to 30 days in jail Friday after he pleaded guilty to amended charges of reckless driving and possession of hydrocodone. Wertz originally faced charges of drunken driving, possession of hydrocodone and possession of under 40 grams of marijuana.

He was sentenced to 30 days on the hydrocodone conviction and 90 days, suspended, for reckless driving. The arrest report said Wertz crossed the centerline of the highway after passing the arresting officer at 6:05 p.m. while driving southbound. Wertz said at the time he was attempting to read a GPS device in the car.

Small diesel spill

A Colfax fire crew was dispatched at about 9 a.m. Tuesday morning to clean up a small diesel spill at the Corner Chevron Station at the Y intersection in North Colfax. The spill resulted when a diesel pump failed to shut off after a Colfax ambulance was being filled.

Absorbent was used to pick up the minor spill.

Arrest follows apartment entry

Tyson T. LeMay, 22, Pullman, was booked into the county jail on probable charges after he was arrested on NE B Street in Pullman early Friday. The report by Pullman Officer C.L. Engles said a group of males had gathered around the suspect in the parking lot. LeMay was bleeding from a wound he had sustained above his left eyebrow.

LeMay at one point told police he had been assaulted by a group of males during the incident but later changed that account.

The police report said Engles had entered the apartment of his girlfriend after she had told him by text message to stay out because he had been out drinking the previous night. Among probable charges were residential burglary, simple assault and unlawful imprisonment.

Air compressor missing

Colfax Police received a report Sunday morning of the apparent theft of a portable air compressor off the back of a truck in the N.1000 block of Morton Street. The truck had been parked in a carport at the owner’s residence, according to Chief Bill Hickman.

—A Colfax fire crew was dispatched at about 9:50 a.m. Friday to the Corner Chevron where attendants said they detected the smell of an electrical fire. Crews determined the smell was generated when the station’s furnace was activated for the first time this season.

Sentence in J court

A 14-year-old Colfax area boy was sentenced to a year in the state juvenile rehabilitation program after pleading guilty earlier in juvenile court to a charge of reckless burning. The youth was originally charged with arson in the episode which led to the destruction of the barn at the family’s rural residence.

The year-long sentence was approved by the court on a finding that the youth needed treatment services provided in the state rehab program. He was found to be unwilling or unable to comply with local juvenile court services. The youth had been convicted two months earlier for malicious mischief and was placed under supervision in that case. He was also charged with taking a motor vehicle, but that was dropped under terms of a plea bargain agreement.

He was credited with 57 days spent in confinement since arrested after the barn fire. The motion to have the juvenile sent to the DSHS program contended he qualified under the state sponsored program. The report said the juvenile showed impulsiveness, lack of consequential thinking and lack of remorse.

Chainsaw report response

Colfax police, sheriff’s deputies and WSP troopers responded at 11 a.m. Friday to a report of a man making threats with a chain saw in Colfax. Officers went upstairs to a second floor apartment in the 100 block on Main Street.

The man reportedly came to the door with a hammer, but complied when officers told him to put it down. The officers determined the man was intoxicated, but had not committed any crimes that would lead to an arrest.

Voters pamphlets due next week

Washington state election booklets are scheduled to be mailed out for this part of the state Oct. 14 and 15, according to County Auditor Eunice Coker. The booklets will contain information on state initiatives and referendums and information on candidates for national and state legislature.

The ballot for the Nov. 2 election includes six initiatives, two referendums and two proposed amendments to the constitution.

Hauser offers park site

Bob Hauser appeared at the Oct. 4 Colfax city council session and renewed an offer to donate a site for a park in Hauser Heights addition. The potential park site is in the area behind the city’s Big Blue reservoir which is on the southeast corner of the addition on the east hill.

The potential site evolved from a split of a lot and does not adjoin a street, but has an easement for a sidewalk.

Hauser pointed out the population of youngsters in the addition has increased as more families locate houses there. He added it made little difference to him if the city accepted or declined the offer.

City council members, who discussed the offer at a previous meeting, again noted the city’s park budget was already strained because of the number of parks in town. One option discussed was accepting the property and possibly developing it into a park at some time in the future.

Porn star appeal ends

The conviction of Christopher Jack Reid, the former California porn star who was found guilty by a jury of rape and three burglary charges in October of 2008, has been affirmed by the Division III Appeals Court in Spokane. A mandate from the appeals court, filed in court here last Thursday said the decision by the appeals court was officially logged Sept. 7.

Reid, who performed under the name of Jack Venice, was sentenced in December of 2008 to 111 months in prison after being convicted of second-degree rape and three counts of burglary. The crimes involved entry into sorority houses on college hill in Pullman. The rape victim was sleeping in one of three sororities Reid and Kyle Schott of Renton entered.

Reid’s appeal had contended he did not have proper legal representation during the jury trial here. Appeals Judge Kevin Korsmo disqualified all of the appeal arguments on the performance of Reid’s defense attorney.

Another appeal argument involved the trial judge’s refusal to continue the trial date. The trial started Oct. 20, 2008, after it had been continued four times. Judge Korsmo ruled Reid’s defense attorney told the court he would be pressed to begin on the Oct. 20 date but did not formally object.

Schott was sentenced to 13 months in prison for third degree rape and burglary after negotiating a plea bargain agreement.

Drugs found in jail search

Two inmates were ordered placed on lock down status for hoarding drugs after a search of cells by jail staffers Oct. 2. One tablet of hydrocodone and one tablet of Ibuprofen were found in cells which were searched after inmates were taken to a holding area.

File motion in Bickle case

A motion to suppress evidence, a large amount of stolen property which was recovered from a mobile home in LaCrosse Aug. 9, was filed Oct 5 on behalf of Paul Bickle, the suspect in the burglary cases. The motion contends the affidavit for the search warrant of the mobile home, located in the N. 300 Block of Clark Street in LaCrosse, did not provide sufficient information to qualify for the search warrant.

Bickle is a suspect in thefts of property from Arrow Machinery, the Department of Transportation north of Colfax, Rite Aid, Ace Hardware and the WalMart construction site in Pullman.

The warrant affidavit was prepared by Pullman police officers who had joined the sheriff’s department in the investigation. Bickle was placed under surveillance at the WalMart site where he was hired as a night watchman.

Deputies said at the time some of the suspected stolen property had been stored under an awning outside because the amount of property was apparently too much to go inside the trailer. A copy of the warrant filed with the motion listed 23 different items, with many of the items, such as 60 cases of 1 X 1 ceramic tiles alleged taken from the WalMart site, in multiple units. The list also included a variety of construction equipment Bickle is alleged to have taken from sub contractors on the WalMart site.

Bickle is being held in jail after bond was set at $200,000 for pre-trial release. He pleaded not guilty Aug. 13 to 21 charges including malicious mischief, burglary and theft.

Robbery Suspect Arrested

A $250,000 bond was set for Randy Norberg, 29, Spokane suspect in a Pullman robbery case who was arrested on a Whitman County warrant in Spokane. The warrant was issued Sept. 23 after Pullman police learned identification of the suspect. Norberg is charged with an early morning entry into a residence on Parkwood Drive in Pullman. The suspect in the case was wearing a ski-type mask and carrying a handgun.

Pullman police Sept. 12 arrested Mark Heltsley, who was identified as the driver of a van which was believed to be involved in the break-in. Heltsley was allegedly identified by the victim who fled his residence after the original intruder went to another room. Heltsley has told police that they had come to Pullman in the wake of a disagreement on a drug transaction in Spokane. Heltsley contended the victim had taken a portable computer which belonged to his daughter.