Infant hospitalized after dog attacks
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. – A 9-month-old infant is in intensive care at a Seattle hospital after the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office says she was attacked twice in two days by her grandmother’s dog. Chief Criminal Deputy Will Reichardt says his office is recommending an assault charge be filed against the grandmother. Prosecutor Rich Weyrich said he didn’t know whether charges would be filed.
The Sheriff’s Office said the infant had recently moved into the grandmother’s home in eastern Skagit County with her 21-year-old mother and 18-year-old father. Reichardt says the parents were not home when the attacks occurred.
The deputy says in the first incident, the Rhodesian Ridgeback-Lab mix named Hercules inflicted an injury that required stitches to reattach part of the infant’s ear.
In the second attack, on Aug. 2, deputies were told the child was crawling on the floor when the dog bit her several times on the head. She suffered a depressed skull fracture and puncture wounds.
The dog is now in quarantine.
Threats forwarded to Capitol police
TACOMA – A Washington state congressman who has criticized recent town-hall meetings for having a “lynch mob mentality” has forwarded a threatening fax depicting President Barack Obama to police.
Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., said his office received the fax depicting Obama in makeup similar to the Joker character from the Batman film “The Dark Knight.”
The communist hammer-and-sickle logo was shown on Obama’s forehead, with the message “Death to All Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!”
Baird spokesman Garrett Russo said U.S. Capitol Police were notified about the fax and about threatening phone calls his office has received.
DNA tracking records 1,000th hit
SEATTLE – The Washington State Patrol says a DNA match made between a Seattle homicide and an unsolved Auburn burglary was the 1,000th positive hit to come from the state’s DNA tracking system.
DNA evidence found at the home of two Seattle women attacked last month was linked to Isaiah M. Kalebu after the genetic evidence collected in Seattle matched DNA in the Auburn case.
Kalebu was arrested and has been charged with aggravated first-degree murder, rape and other counts in the July 19 attack that left Teresa Butz dead and injured her 36-year-old partner.
As of July, the State Patrol says the state’s DNA database contained about 157,000 profiles of convicted offenders and 2,500 forensic evidence samples.