The police investigation against a cadre
of suspected liquor thieves continues. In the
meantime, Port Orchard Police Commander Geoff Marti sent over a few
pictures from the results of the search warrant investigators
served on the SUV the suspects were riding around in. Have a look
at all 68 bottles’ worth.
That’s a lot of Grey Goose.
It’s been a taxing year on the shoplifting front for
newly-empowered liquor retailers in the state, following the
implementation of Initiative 1183. In Kitsap County alone, three
cases in which groups of shoplifters purloined bottles of booze are
pending.
The problem spurred the Washington
Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to write the state’s
Liquor Control Board, asking the board to
make retailers track and report their liquor thefts. After a
rule-making process, that will start to happen. Then, we’ll truly
see just how much of a problem liquor theft has been.
The Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office has a new member, of
the four-legged variety. Titan, a two-year-old German
shepherd, has officially signed into service as a tracking dog and
is partnered up with Kitsap County Sheriff’s Deputy Joe
Hedstrom.
Bringing Titan into the office would not have been possible
without a $5,000 donation from the Peninsula Dog Fancier’s Club of
Kitsap County, deputies said in a news release.
The dog was born in Germany in 2010 and imported to America in
the summer, through Von Grunheide Shepherds of Snohomish.
Hedstrom is no stranger to K-9 handling. He partnered with and
trained Ajax, a German shepherd who worked the beat four years
amassing 112 captures. But a neck injury forced Ajax to retire
early. He now lives at Hedstrom’s home.
The news this week made at least one Kitsap Sun reader wonder
about the death. After doing some research, we can confirm that
while strange and while tragic, there were two Israel Keyes, one
who reportedly killed himself in Montana after shooting two people
and another who died this week, after he disclosing to the FBI that
he killed four people in Washington between 2001 and 2006.
The Bremerton city attorney has dismissed about 20
simple possession marijuana cases in the wake of Initiative 502’s
passage.
City Attorney Roger Lubovich said his office was waiting until
Dec. 6, an ounce of pot for adults 21 and older became legal in the
state. He said the dismissals were limited to those charged with
just misdemeanor possession, and not in cases where multiple crimes
were charged.
Bremerton’s municipal court handles misdemeanor cases that occur
within the city. The Kitsap County Prosecutor’s office handles all
felony cases in the county and misdemeanor cases outside Bremerton.
The office has a contract for prosecutorial services with Port
Orchard, Poulsbo and Bainbridge Island.
Interestingly, under the new state law, up to an ounce, or about
28 grams, is legal to possess for adults 21 and over. That means
it’s still a misdemeanor to have between 28 and 40 grams of pot
(that is, unless it’s in food or liquid form). Above 40 grams is
still a felony.
Pot, as you probably know, becomes legal to possess in
Washington as of tomorrow. Initiative 502,
passed by voters last month, allows adults 21 and older to have
up to an ounce starting Dec. 6. (Don’t ask how one goes about
getting marijuana, which is still illegal to sell, or distribute,
or — unless you’re authorized under the state’s medical marijuana
law — grow).
It’s the first state ever to do so — some are calling it
“cannabiotic armistice
day” — as Colorado’s legalization law, also passed
this November, does not take effect until January. Later, the
initiative calls for a system of growers, brokers and retail stores
to sell pot.
But the looming cloud of uncertainty as to what the federal
government, which still regards weed as a dangerous,
unhealthy narcotic — will do in the wake of 502’s passage was
lifted ever so slightly with a news release Wednesday. Here it is
in its entirety. I’ll leave it to you to interpret it:
“The Department of Justice is reviewing the legalization
initiatives recently passed in Colorado and Washington
State. The Department’s responsibility to enforce the
Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged. Neither States
nor the Executive branch can nullify a statute passed by
Congress. In enacting the Controlled
Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I
controlled substance. Regardless of any changes in state law,
including the change that will go into effect on December
6th in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing
any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
Members of the public are also advised to remember that it remains
against federal law to bring any amount of marijuana onto federal
property, including all federal buildings, national parks and
forests, military installations, and courthouses.”
The state’s Department of Revenue reported Tuesday that liquor
sales by volume were almost three percent higher during the
first four months of privatization than they were a year
earlier.
Get this: almost 13.6 million liters were sold from June through
September, the first months of Initiative 1183’s impact, while 13.2
million liters were sold a year earlier in state liquor stores.
The Department of Revenue also announced that the taxes on
liquor have pushed up their price. The average price for a liter —
including taxes — was $24.09 in September. (Compare that to $21.58
when the state ran the business.)
Click here to see a monthly report on liquor sales.
Jennifer Forbes, candidate for Kitsap County Superior
Court Judge, posted a comment on the Kitsap Sun’s Web site this
afternoon regretting her decision to comment on stories without
identifying herself.
She’d made several comments using the handle “1989payforward”
where she accuses her opponent, Karen Klein, mainly of
misrepresenting her hours working as a pro-tem judge. (That clash
was well documented in
a story by the North Kitsap Herald’s Richard Walker.)
“My blogs were all truthful, except that I did not re-identify
myself as the blogger, which in retrospect, I should have,” Forbes
said in her
most recent comment, which she also emailed to me.
Another commenter had pointed out earlier that Forbes, the
Kitsap County Bar Association’s president, had signed
her name to the 1989payforward handle a few years back on an
obituary.
Klein, the woman Forbes is running against, said she’d heard
about the comments and took a look at them. She hadn’t seen them
before. “I don’t like to read blog posts,” she said.
She wasn’t sure if they were Forbes or not, but felt that if
true, “there are ethical issues.” She said she was trying to stay
focused on her own campaign.
Here is Forbes’ most recent comment:
“Last week there was a column in the Sun by Rob Woutat regarding
Karen Klein. I had nothing to do with that article. I did not ask
for it, nor instigate it. However, I did post comments in a blog
under the name “1989payforward,” a log-in blog name I had
previously identified as me. (May 2011)
These blogs took issue with falsehoods continually repeated by
Ms. Klein about her over-exaggerated hours as a judge pro-tem.
These allegations were investigated and reported in the North
Kitsap Herald, verifying that Ms. Klein had significantly less
experience she was making the basis of her qualifications for
judge.
My blogs were all truthful, except that I did not re-identify
myself as the blogger, which in retrospect, I should have.
These comments followed after weeks of Ms. Klein handing out a
flyer to voters with a material misstatement about her
qualification that she had earlier admitted were not true. After
she handed it out again this last week in a meeting in front of me,
my frustration boiled over.
I regret letting my frustration get the best of me.
It has been a long campaign, and I have been subjected to slurs
and falsehoods in this and other settings. But when it comes to
watching falsehoods repeated week after week, with little press to
check up on the true facts, I truly was just trying to stand up for
myself and my record.”
The black and gray tabby gets
help at the vet. COURTESY PHOTO
As someone who often patrols the sylvan environs of
North Kitsap, Deputy Shane Hanson’s had his share of run-ins with
wild animals.
But what his patrol cruiser’s headlights illuminated in the wee
hours last Monday, no one could prepare for.
A black and gray tabby cat was wandering helplessly in the
middle of Port Gamble Road, with something on her head. Hanson got
out to take a closer look. He found the feline’s head was
completely lodged in a can of tuna, blinding her and keeping her
mouth forced open.
He informed dispatchers he was going to check on the cat. Kept
his words simple at first, so as to not raise eyebrows with his
fellow deputies to start with. The cat could escape and his story
might then be seen as far-fetched.
“No one’s gonna believe this,” he said he thought.
The first attempt to help the cat did not go well for the
six-year sheriff’s deputy, who spent the first 11 years of his
career as an officer on Bainbridge. When he got close, the cat
lashed out, tearing her claws into Hanson’s ring finger and
palm.
Undeterred, Hanson regrouped and, a member of the county’s SWAT
team, he grabbed his department-issued SWAT jacket as defense from
kitty’s claws.
The cat ran off several times. Hanson said he worried if anyone
should see him, images of keystone cops would fill their heads.
The cat went into a yard and surrendered. Hanson bundled the cat
up. He asked some residents if they’d lost an animal; they said
no.
Off he went to Animal Emergency and Trauma Center in Poulsbo,
whose veterinarians went to work to help the cat. (Hanson’s own
hand injury, meanwhile, was further remedied with a Tetanus shot to
be on the safe side.)
The vets’ surgery was successful in removing the can. I’m told
that even a can opener was used to help in the extraction.
Kitsap County Animal Control Officer Tyrus Edwards picked the
cat — believed to be female — up from the center and took her to
the Kitsap Humane Society.
Aside from the trauma, the cat has recovered.
Hanson, for his part, said he’s always liked animals — he’s more
of a dog person, he admits — and hates the thought of them
suffering. He said he was happy to help the animal and was pleased
to hear she’s doing better.
Rob Drought, the humane society’s feline coordinator, said she’s
semi-feral, though and hopes she’ll go soon to a foster home to
recuperate. Because she’s only around a year old, there’s a
reasonable chance she could one day go home with a family.
“I have a funny feeling we may be able to rehabilitate this
girl,” Drought said.
Here are a few recent odds and ends from my
reporter’s notebook:
POLICE DATABASE EXPANDS: You may remember the
Kitsap Sun story about the Law Enforcement Information Exchange
(LinX), in which Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents
were working to thread together a database of all reports gathered
by local law enforcement agencies. (The effort began in a Levin
Road basement.) Keep in mind that prior to 9/11, a lot of data
collected by law enforcement, including field interviews, mug
shots, and investigative narratives, could only be accessed only by
the agency that created them.
I asked Keith Haines, LinX’s regional program manager, how it
was going. He said LinX, which already encompasses most law
enforcement agencies on both U.S. coasts, has begun integrating
with the FBI’s “N-DEx” system, which
will host a nationwide database that hopes to include all U.S. law
enforcement reports.
FINGERPRINT SCANNERS: Did you know King County
Sheriff’s Office is using pocket-sized fingerprint scanners to
identify uncooperative and unscrupulous suspects? Regular readers
of the Kitsap Sun will know these
debuted in Kitsap County five years ago. The followup,
by the Seattle Times, is that they’ve got more of the bugs in
them worked out.
MARIJUANA ROUNDUP: As the election looms, a
number of stories have appeared regarding Initiative 502 in recent
weeks. Among the most interesting in my book: More than 241,000
people in Washington state were
arrested for marijuana possession over the past 25 years;
marijuana backers are getting some
states-rights conservatives to support the measure; and a bunch
of drug czars have come out against the measure, which they say
violates constitutional law and could
trigger a “constitutional showdown.”
HOMEOWNER CONFRONTATION: Imagine going outside
your home to find someone holding your machete and chainsaw. Not
only do you own them, but you wouldn’t want a stranger swinging
them at you, either. Last week, a homeowner west of Long Lake had
just that encounter — and he wrestled the machete away from the
stranger, chased him down the road and told him to stay put until
Kitsap County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, reports say. Deputies
said the suspect remarked that he’d “only get a criminal trespass
for this.” Prosecutors have charged him with burglary.
HANDCUFFED AND RUNNING: An Alaska man was
arrested Friday for trying to pass counterfeit $20s at Walmart.
Poulsbo police responded and the man let them look in his wallet,
where officers found six $20s with the same serial
numbers. Police had handcuffed the man, who’d also violated
probation and had him sit on the push bars of a patrol
car. That’s when reports say the man “jumped to his feet and
took off running … still in handcuffs.” An officer gave chase and
tried his Taser, but missed. The suspect was ultimately tackled and
taken the Kitsap County jail.
In his former life as a Washington state trooper, Kitsap
County Sheriff Steve Boyer recalls watching a motorist one day
drive around a Walmart parking lot, encircling it several times at
about three miles an hour.
Round and round the car went, until Boyer’s hit his overhead
lights and brought the car from its crawl to a halt.
The driver was stoned, Boyer recalled.
The sheriff used the story to explain to me his mixed feelings
about Initiative 502, which would legalize the possession of
marijuana for adults 21 and over. The driver was certainly not the
worst he’d ever seen, having responded to too many alcohol-fueled
fatality crashes. But he looks at the issue from a public health
standpoint: would Washingtonians be better off if they could
purchase weed at a store?
“Do you really want to add it to the mix” of our currently
legalized libations? he asked.
For the record, Boyer will not be following suit of King County
Sheriff Steve Strachan, who has
come out in favor of the initiative. Boyer will be voting no on
it.
But the issue’s merits are a conversation he wants to have.
“I think it deserves a dialogue and discussion,” he said. “Not
just rhetoric.”
He believes that medical marijuana, whose patients in this state
have long operated in a legal gray area, can help people. And he
does not view pot as a scourge on society in the same way as, say,
meth or heroin have been.
“Marijuana being an evil weed causing all the problems in this
country? I don’t buy that,” he said.
But here’s why he’s voting no:
The plant remains a so-called Schedule 1 narcotic — meaning it
has a high potential for abuse and has no value medically — in the
eyes of the federal government.
Use of any substance not prescribed for medical use — legal or
illegal — “do not usually make a person’s life better,” he
said.
He doubts the criminal justice system will save money by not
having to prosecute simple marijuana possession. “There are very
few people in jail for recreational marijuana,” he said.
Boyer reiterated his willingness to continue the discuss and
that he could change his mind about possible future initiatives.
For now, he’s still weighing the issues, but isn’t ready to vote to
end marijuana prohibition.
