Routine police call ends in pot bust
A simple trespassing call turned into a 50-pound marijuana bust Saturday for Adams County sheriff’s deputies.
Officers were responding to a Ritzville-area trespassing call in the 2700 block of East Rehn Road, where they arrested Domingo Castillo, of Ritzville, for alleged trespassing and possession of 50 to 60 pounds of marijuana.
Castillo’s arrest prompted a Washington State Patrol flight over the area, which located a possible marijuana grow operation near Cow Creek. Deputies and state troopers found about 300 full-grown marijuana plants at the site.
– Tom Lutey
Spokane
Driver of truck sought in hit-and-run crash
Police are looking for a downtown bar patron who drove into an elderly man Sunday night while storming out of a parking lot in the 200 block of West Riverside Avenue.
Little is known about the male driver, said Spokane Officer Teresa Fuller, though it’s believed he was ejected from The Zombie Room bar immediately before the 7 p.m. hit-and-run accident occurred. Outside the bar, the victim, believed to be 77, was closing the entry gate on a private parking lot for the Delaney Apartments. The driver, who was parked illegally in the gated lot, rammed the gate as it was closing, striking the man before driving off.
The vehicle appeared to be a newer white four-door truck. The victim was conscious when he was taken to the hospital by ambulance for a head injury.
“He was talking when he left for the hospital, but with elderly people, you never know,” Fuller said.
– Tom Lutey
BOISE
Luna seeks changes to field trip rules
Idaho’s head of public schools wants rules for field trips revamped after state auditors rejected $27,000 in travel expenses submitted by the Meridian School District, Idaho’s largest.
Tom Luna, state superintendent of public instruction, said rules governing when the state should pick up the transportation tab are antiquated and ill-suited to accommodate trips made by students at new magnet schools built around art, math and science.
A state Department of Education transportation audit alerted Luna to the issue.
For instance, the state declined to pay $475 for a trip taken by all of the students at Meridian’s Christine Donnell School for the Arts to the Morrison Center for the Performing Arts in Boise. According to field trip rules, such excursions must be tied to the curriculum, and when an entire school goes, that’s “too vast a group of children to say that it is tied to each one of their (studies),” said Ray Merical, state Education Department transportation director.
But advocates of magnet schools that offer students a choice by focusing on a single educational theme say existing rules ignore an important point: All kids at an art-focused school may be interested in a musical or theatrical production – not just a single class.
– Associated Press
Moses Lake
Investigators search debris for cause of fire
A Moses Lake house fire that killed a father and two young children Saturday likely started on the home’s south end, where several items were pulled from the living room Sunday for analysis.
Fire investigators have so far been unable to determine what caused the Saturday morning fire that killed Daniel Villareal, 28, Dante Beltran, 7, and Natalie Beltran, 5.
Witnesses told firefighters Villareal had escaped the fire with his wife, Sara, and 18-month-old son, Lukas. Both parents ran back in the house for Dante and Natalie.
Sara Villareal was in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Lukas Villareal was treated at Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake and released to family members.
– Tom Lutey