A crafty Kitsap sheriff’s deputy, watching from inside the Silverdale Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru at 3 a.m. for suspects in a stolen gun case, didn’t make the arrest he was planning on making, but instead arrested a violent felon on a parole violation.

The deputy had spotted the tan Mercedes pulling into the drive-through Saturday, and found it was registered to a couple suspected of leaving behind a stolen gun at a Bremerton motel last month, according to court documents.

In order to confirm the identity of the people in the car, the deputy “formulated a plan” to watch from the drive-thru window. He contacted an employee inside, who let him in, and the deputy watched as the car pulled forward.

It wasn’t the criminals he was looking for, but behind the wheel was a criminal, a 25-year-old convicted of first-degree robbery wanted for a state Department of Corrections warrant.

Deputies arrested the man without incident, after he got his food. The man said he had been driving the car for about a month. Before booking him into jail on the warrant, the deputy found a scale covered in small specks of heroin. The man said the scale was used to weigh pot, and it didn’t belong to him.

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Last week Gov. Jay Inslee signed a measure making it a civil violation to leave a dog in a car when it’s too hot or too cold out.

SB 5501 applies to more than just dogs, and it applies to more than just cars, and it gives legal protection to first responders who might break a window to free an animal withering in the heat of a car. (Inslee also line item veto’d some language in the bill applying to backyard livestock)

The law does not, however, give protections to passers by who might enter a car to save an animal, but local law enforcement officials have said if a person honestly believes an animal is in danger, they would not face prosecution.

Sandra Crump, a Poulsbo resident I profiled last summer who regularly patrols parking lots, hunting for animals in distress, called the bill a big step forward.

She believes the way to normalize kindness toward animals starts with the law. For some, she said, the threat of a fine provides the initial nudge. Additionally, she said the new law signals to society that a shift is taking place, and although the new law doesn’t do a whole lot — it provides for a civil fine of $125 — the publicity the law has received plants the seed.

Things are changing, she said.

“Even the pope says dogs have souls,” Crump said.

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Tony Perry Sr. has dealt with a lot of pain in his life.

He claimed his father struck him in the head when he was child, requiring a plate to be implanted.

He walks with a limp, and in fact, his whole left side aches or is numb. That’s one of the reasons he likes to race BMX bikes. He may lumber through life on his own two legs, but on two wheels, he’s quick and graceful.

And racing BMXs, while he allegedly stated he was too injured to work and misrepresented the cause of an injury, is what got Perry in trouble.

Facing prosecution from the state for fraud, the 52-year-old Port Orchard man pleaded guilty last month to two counts of third-degree theft for what the state Attorney General’s Office says was his theft of about $14,000 in disabled worker benefits.

“I didn’t want to be plead, I didn’t think I did anything wrong,” he said.

The $14,000 figure is how much he received in workers’ compensation checks from January 2012 to August 2013, according to the AG statement.

“I did everything they told me to do,” Perry said, calling the AG’s statement a “one-sided story.”

Perry said he was offered the deal, and he understands there are no guarantees when you go to trial, so he took it, but it still smarts.

“Now I’m a thief because I’m riding a bicycle,” he said, claiming that he kept his doctors informed of his hobby, and with their encouragement continued racing.

Perry said a doctor said it was good for his lungs, good for his legs, and Perry said it was good for his head as well. He also said he did not make statements to the state Department of Labor and Industries, claiming the information the department received came from his doctors. The same doctors, he said, told him exercise would do him good.

“I’m not Josh Klatman,” Perry said, referring to the BMX pro from Kitsap. “I just wanted to do it for recreation and for my health.”

Note: This story was modified Jan. 23, 2017. Perry was the sole source for the information contained in this story.

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The reason Pierce County prosecutors passed on pressing charges against a woman involved in the Sept. 14 death of South Kitsap legend Leon Shaw was because they believe evidence shows that she was escaping a sexual assault.

Deputy Prosecutor Tim Jones, who specializes in traffic related death cases like vehicular homicide, reviewed the case file and made the call to decline charges. He said Tuesday the incident on the Key Peninsula where Shaw was killed was likely a sexual assault, but, also, if prosecutors pursed charges against the woman they would not likely get a conviction (read the full and complete story here and read Shaw’s epic obituary here).

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a wealth of evidence, but there is a sufficient amount of evidence of a sexual assault that she was probably escaping,” Jones said. “Put that in front of a jury and they would say, ‘What are you thinking?’”

Two rape kits were completed, but the results were not included in the package of reports the Kitsap Sun received as part of its public records request. Jones said he was not at liberty to discuss the results of those tests.

Also not included in the public documents were the woman’s medical records. A Washington State Patrol drug test on the woman’s blood found meth and booze, but no evidence of barbiturates. However, Jones said a search warrant of hospital records and blood samples did find barbiturates in the woman’s system. There was also evidence in the woman’s system of another drug that could impair memory or cause a blackout, Jones said.

The woman, according to her recorded statement to Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies, said Shaw had given her a pill he said was aspirin to help with the pain of the tattoo she was receiving. At some point after that she blacked out. She claimed she was drinking liquor, but not a lot of liquor, and said she can hold her booze. The tattoo artist friend said she took four big shots of Crown Royal whiskey on top of what she had already consumed.

If Shaw had survived the incident, Jones said it was hard to say if he would have been charged with a sexual assault. Shaw’s tattoo artist friend said no assault occurred, Shaw would have had the right to be silent and the woman said she doesn’t remember anything beyond making out with Shaw while she lied on a table getting a tattoo of a flower on her chest.

“I don’t know if she would be credible in reporting it, because she has got this blank spot,” Jones said.

Jones said if you consider the just the death and crash, it might appear like pretty clear-cut case of vehicular homicide.

“It’s pretty simple, get drunk, drive, crash, kill somebody in Pierce County you will probably go to prison,” he said.

However, the facts of the case are not that simple (see links above).

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Kitsap Superior Court Judge Anna Laurie wrote Gov. Jay Inslee today to say she will retire effective June 30.

Inslee spokeswoman Jaime Smith confirmed the letter, and said Inslee’s office will post notice of the vacancy soon.

Although judges can have a reputation for being no-nonsense while conducting their courtrooms, those who have been present to see Laurie finalize adoptions know she has a soft side.

This from a story I wrote last year about a finalization ceremony:

Some of the parents tried to quiet the young ones as Judge Anna Laurie spoke, but she told them not to worry.

“You don’t have to shush those children,” Laurie said, who was adopted from foster care as an infant. “You have no idea how joyous that noise is for me.”

This from Laurie’s page on the county courts website (it doesn’t mention that Laurie, like me, is from Renton):

Judge Laurie graduated from Highline Community College with an Associates in Arts degree.  She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Washington, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology.  She later returned to the University of Washington to earn a Juris Doctorate.

After her graduation, she settled in Kitsap County and practiced law in Bremerton from 1982 to 2001 when she was elected to the Kitsap County Superior Court Bench.

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