Trooper improves after I-5 crash

A state trooper injured in a high-speed crash on Interstate 5 was responding to commands and showing signs of improvement Sunday but remained in critical condition, officials said.

“He’s moving his hands and he’s moving his toes,” Washington State Patrol trooper Mike Bassett said. The trooper was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with multiple injuries, including swelling of the brain, a lacerated lung and a broken hip, Bassett said.

A Harborview nursing supervisor reached on Sunday said he remained in critical condition, but said she could release no other information.

The crash happened on Saturday, when the trooper was pursuing a speeding silver Mercedes on I-5 near suburban Kent south of Seattle, a state patrol dispatcher said.

The Mercedes was going 100 mph when the trooper swerved to avoid another vehicle, the dispatcher said.

The state patrol has not released the trooper’s name but has said he is 31.

Boise

Girl fatally shot, 3 hurt at party

Boise police say a 14-year-old girl has died after a shooting during a party at a Boise apartment complex.

The girl, whose name was not released, was shot twice in the head and chest early Saturday morning and died that evening at a local hospital, police said.

Three other people injured in the shooting – a 15-year-old girl and a 28-year-old man, both from Boise, and a 30-year-old man from Garden City – were also hospitalized but did not appear to have life-threatening injuries, police said.

Officers said about 20 people were at a party in the complex in western Boise when some of the partygoers got in a fight. One of the men involved in the fight left, then returned with a handgun and apparently fired at random into the living room, police said.

Though police have a few suspects, they do not have anyone in custody and do not know where the suspects are, Police Chief Mike Masterson said.

– From wire reports