Kevin Graman

Controversy over a proposed deal to rehire a Spokane police sergeant after he was fired for an off-duty drunken driving collision has focused attention on an often-misunderstood state agency involved in the settlement negotiations – the Washington Human Rights Commission. The deal called for the city of Spokane to rehire fired Sgt. Brad Thoma and purported to be mediated by the Human Rights Commission, based on a claim that the city failed to accommodate the officer’s disability of alcoholism. However, Sharon Ortiz, the commission’s executive director, said she had not signed off on the deal that had been brokered by an investigator in the commission’s Spokane office and that it would need further review.

Two female inmates escaped from the Geiger Corrections Center on Tuesday night, but were captured within an hour by law enforcement officers from several area agencies. Kathleen Stockton, 49, and Rachel A. Banks, 25, escaped the corrections center at about 7:20 p.m. by scaling a security fence, according to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the pedestrian killed last week when he was struck by a semitrailer truck. Larue Brown, 39, died of head, neck and chest injuries as a result of the Nov. 23 incident at Second Avenue and Thor Street in Spokane, according to a medical examiner’s spokeswoman.

As falling temperatures force Spokane’s poorest residents to line up for help with heating bills, the largest source of that assistance remains very much in doubt. SNAP, the private nonprofit social services agency, has had to schedule appointments with clients seeking federal energy assistance without knowing exactly how much money will be available.

The person killed Saturday night by police responding to a report of a vehilcle prowler has not been identified.

A Spokane man has filed suit in King County against the Boy Scouts of America and its Inland Northwest Council, claiming he was sexually abused in the late 1970s by an infamous serial child predator who once volunteered as a Scout leader. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in King County Superior Court on behalf of a 44-year-old man who says he was abused when he was in the Boy Scouts in Spokane beginning in the summer or fall of 1978.

Post Falls police arrested a Post Falls couple in the January 2009 death of 2-year-old Karina Janay Moore, who was fatally injured while in the couple’s foster care. Jeremy and Amber Clark were booked into Kootenai County Jail on Thursday on charges of injury to a child, conspiracy and perjury, according to a jail official. The case has been sealed by a judge until the Clarks’ first court appearance, according to Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Barry McHugh.

Post Falls police arrested a Post Falls couple in the January 2009 death of 2-year-old Karina Janay Moore, who was fatally injured while in the couple’s foster care.

Reforms prompted by a landmark lawsuit against Washington state’s foster-care system will be completed in two years under a renegotiated settlement announced today by the Department of Social and Health Services.

The New Jersey company that offered Ernesto Bustamante a job as he was being investigated by the University of Idaho for sexual harassment never called the university for references, a company spokeswoman said on Friday. “The references he provided were not from the University of Idaho,” said April Perrone, human resources manager at Hi-Tec Systems, an aviation industry engineering and research company based in Egg Harbor Township, N.J.

The New Jersey company that offered Ernesto Bustamante a job as he was being investigated by the University of Idaho for sexual harassment never called the university for references, a company spokeswoman said on Friday.

Records released by the University of Idaho provide new insight into the mind of Ernesto Bustamante, the professor who gunned down his former student and lover at her Moscow home before killing himself.