Fall through ceiling ends standoff

A 90-minute police standoff in north Spokane ended abruptly Sunday after a man holed up in an attic near Hays Park fell through the ceiling.

Seth J. Bagley, 21, was wanted on a domestic abuse warrant, police said. He was at a house in the 1800 block of East Courtland Avenue when a woman there called 911 shortly after 5:30 p.m., then hung up.

Dispatchers could hear a man and woman screaming in the background before the line went dead. They linked the address and phone number to Bagley, who also had a restraining order against him.

A half dozen officers responded. When they arrived, the woman ran out of the house with a child, but Bagley headed for the attic, police said. The woman informed officers Bagley might be armed.

“The information we had was there were guns in the house,” said Tim Moses, Senior Spokane Police patrolman. “It turned out they were in a padlocked cabinet in the garage, but we didn’t know that.”

Officers closed off the street, then surrounded the house and attempted to talk Bagley down from the attic. After it was clear he wouldn’t come down, Moses said, police fired pepper spray into the attic and waited for Bagley to come down, which he did – right through the home’s ceiling.

A police dog then subdued him.

Moses said Bagley was taken to the hospital for treatment of dog bites, then booked into jail on the domestic abuse warrant.

Five Mile fire threatens timber

A brush fire erupted on a steep Five Mile Prairie hillside Sunday afternoon, sending a 20-man crew scrambling to keep it out of heavy timber.

Neighbors in the 7100 block of North Walnut Street reported the half-acre blaze shortly after 1 p.m. The cause of the fire was undetermined. No buildings were damaged.

Flames threatened a stand of trees, as well as homes above it on Walnut.

Spokane firefighters said the fire was contained in about 45 minutes.

Newport, Ore.

Dead gray whale washes onto beach

A 40-foot California gray whale washed ashore near Newport over the weekend.

David Woody, a beach ranger for the Oregon State Parks Department, said the U.S. Coast Guard spotted the whale in the ocean on Saturday and it reached the shore near Seal Rock late Saturday or early Sunday.

Woody said it appeared the whale had been dead for at least a few days, and there were no obvious signs of trauma.

Marine mammal specialists from the Hatfield Marine Science Center started inspecting the whale, which will be buried after the experts finish their examination and try to determine the cause of death, Woody said.

Gig Harbor, Wash.

Joyride ends in crash on runway

A 21-year-old man who works at the Tacoma Narrows Airport was arrested early Sunday after taking a joyride on the airport’s runway before crashing off the tarmac, police said.

The driver was arrested on investigation of vehicular assault, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said. Both the driver and his passenger were taken to Tacoma General Hospital, but neither was seriously injured.

Fulghum said both work at the airport and had access to the runway. The Pontiac Grand Am crashed and rolled off the end of the runway shortly before 2:30 a.m. Sunday. One of the men called for help.

The 21-year-old worked at the airport for about a year fueling planes for PAVCO Flight Center. The company’s owner, Mike Pickett, told the News Tribune of Tacoma in a story on its Web site Sunday afternoon that the man was a “good employee” but later added that what he did was “a foolish thing to do.”

Pickett said the car’s passenger – a 27-year-old – is a contract worker for the FAA at the airport.

From staff and wire reports