Teens investigate, find mall “gorilla”

Stanwood

Teens investigate, find mall “gorilla”

Two teens who reportedly tracked down a 25-foot inflatable gorilla stolen from a local shopping mall by calling several fellow Stanwood High School students turned the monster monkey over to Stanwood police yesterday.

Sometime last week, the gorilla was stolen from Viking Village, where it was being used to advertise a hot-tub sale. The blue-and-yellow beast had been deflated because of high winds, according to police.

Yesterday, two 17-year-old “good Samaritans” brought police the apparently “unharmed” gorilla, said Snohomish County sheriff’s spokesman Rich Niebusch. The teens will probably receive a $500 reward posted by the gorilla’s owner, Niebusch said.

Stanwood police are investigating the theft, but as of last night the gorilla was blown back up and resumed flying above the Highway 532 mall.

Seattle

Panel lets candidate keep donors secret

The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission yesterday granted a request by a socialist candidate for City Council to keep secret the names of her campaign donors.

Linda Averill, a member of the Freedom Socialist Party, is running for council Position 4 against incumbent Jan Drago.

Two years ago, Averill won a federal court case allowing her to shield her donors from disclosure, reversing a decision by the ethics panel. In light of that ruling, the panel yesterday voted unanimously to grant Averill’s request this year.

Seattle election rules normally require campaigns to disclose names of donors who give more than $25. However, Averill argued that her donors could be subjected to harassment if their names were associated with her radical views.

U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik ruled in 2003 that sworn statements by Socialist Party members, detailing phone threats and other harassment, showed that “hostility toward socialist ideas remains alive and well in our society.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that contributor-disclosure exemptions are appropriate in cases when fear of harassment and intimidation creates a “chilling effect” on the willingness of people to associate with a political party or ideology.

Vancouver, B.C.

Individual linked to eagle poaching

Investigators think they know who is responsible for the slaughter of dozens of bald eagles near Vancouver in a poaching operation that sold talons, feathers and other parts across North America, officials said yesterday.

No arrests have been made in the case that has drawn international attention, and conservation officials issued an unusual public appeal for the “prime suspect” — a person they declined to name — to cooperate with the probe that involves Canadian and U.S. investigators.

“Our understanding is that eagles were being killed by more than one person, and being collected by this individual, and that individual was responsible for the distribution of eagle parts,” said Lance Sundquist, a B.C. Conservation Service officer.

The parts are sold on the black market to buyers who want them for everything from artistic to religious reasons, according to wildlife officials.

Juneau, Alaska

Man banished in ’93 arrested in new crime

A man banished to a Southeast Alaska island for a 1993 Everett robbery was arrested in Juneau on assault and weapons charges. Adrian Rusch-Guthrie, 28, was charged Tuesday with pressing a gun to the head of a sleeping man.

Rusch-Guthrie was one of two teenagers from Klawock who became an experiment in Native tribal justice when sentenced to time on an island off Craig. Rusch-Guthrie and his cousin, Simon Roberts, in 1993 used an aluminum baseball bat to rob a pizza deliveryman in Everett. The 25-year-old man suffered permanent hearing and eyesight damage.

The cousins pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in 1994. Both teens were turned over to a Tlingit tribal court, which banished them to separate camp sites on a small island near Prince of Wales Island for what was to be 18 months.

National news reports noted unauthorized visits to town and visits by media and family members. The judge cut the banishment short in 1996.

The latest charges were filed after an 18-year-old man reported to police that Rusch-Guthrie had come into his home and pressed a gun against his head while he was sleeping.

Bellevue

Regular gasoline hits record $2.319 a gallon

The price of self-serve regular unleaded gasoline in Washington state hit $2.319 per gallon yesterday, a record high, according to AAA.

The previous record price was $2.309 set last May 29, the automobile association said.

The national average of self-serve regular unleaded gasoline is $2.228 per gallon.

Bremerton

KPS may be sold to Group Health

After five years in receivership, KPS Health Plans of Bremerton may be sold to Group Health Cooperative, under a proposed sale agreement announced yesterday.

KPS, similar to Group Health in that it is both a provider and insurer for its 55,000 patients, has been overseen by the state’s Office of the Insurance Commissioner since August 1999 because it was failing financially.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said he considers the sale to be a “positive development” for both sides, one that would ensure a more certain future for the company. Group Health said the sale would enable the cooperative to quickly increase membership and gain a place in the Kitsap Peninsula and South Sound communities.

Under terms of the proposed sale, Group Health will have 45 days to review KPS and talk with community leaders, hospitals, physicians and others in the area. If the sale goes through, KPS would operate as a separate company, maintaining its name and identity, Group Health said, and members of KPS wouldn’t see any change in coverage or benefits.

Seattle

Woman jumps out of apartment window

A woman in her 50s who apparently has a history of mental illness jumped from the third floor of the four-story Gatewood Apartments in downtown Seattle yesterday.

A social worker called 911 at 9:40 a.m. to report a disturbance involving a resident who had been screaming and throwing items around her room for the past two days, said Seattle police spokeswoman Debra Brown. When officers arrived at the building near First Avenue and Pike Street at 10:01 a.m., the woman was standing on the third-floor ledge outside her unit, throwing items into the street, she said. At 10:04 a.m., officers with the department’s crisis-intervention team were trying to talk with the woman and called for negotiators to come to the scene, Brown said.

Negotiators were en route when the woman jumped less than 20 minutes later. She suffered a severe head injury and her heart stopped, but medics were able to revive her, Brown said. She was taken to Harborview Medical Center but as of yesterday afternoon, her condition was not known.

Renton

Teenager arrested in carjacking, kidnap

Renton police arrested a 17-year-old Seattle boy yesterday, a day after another boy turned himself in to police in last week’s carjacking, robbery and kidnapping of a Renton man.

Both boys are cooperating with police, said police spokeswoman Penny Bartley. The boy who turned himself in is also a 17-year-old from Seattle. The boy arrested yesterday was taken into custody at his house around 6 a.m., she said.

The two are under investigation for robbery and kidnapping after a man was carjacked and forced into the trunk of his car late last Thursday. The man was kept in the trunk as his assailants drove around, trying to rob and kidnap two other men.

The assailants eventually let the man in the trunk out in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood.

Times staff and news services