In brief: Police arrest two in robbery, assault

A home-invasion robbery targeting a medical marijuana patient led to the arrests of two suspects lastweek.

Nicholas S. Gardner, 28, and his girlfriend, Jill A. Benton, 26, are in jail on robbery, assault and kidnapping charges for allegedly attacking John J. Beck, 30, on Jan. 15 at his home in the 5400 block of North Lincoln Street.

Beck has a medical marijuana prescription and grows a small amount in his basement, according to police. He’d met Benton on two occasions when she stopped by about 12:30 p.m. last Friday and stayed for about 10 minutes. Beck said he offered to give her a ride home, but she declined.

About 15 minutes after she left, two men – one with a gun and the other with a baseball bat – knocked on Beck’s back door, then pushed him into the house and bound him with electrical cords, police said.

Benton told police “she has no idea about any robbery,” detectives wrote in a search warrant. But police say her phone records showed a call just before 1 p.m. through a tower near Beck’s home.

Gardner was given $150,000 bond after appearing in Superior Court Thursday. Benton’s bond is at $20,000. A third suspect has not been publicly identified.

Radio talk show host becomes GOP chair

TUKWILA, Wash. – Washington state’s Republican Party has a new chairman.

Longtime radio talk-show host Kirby Wilbur unseated Luke Esser for the position. Delegates at a GOP meeting in Tukwila cast 69 votes for Wilbur, 36 for Esser and 7 for Bill Rennie.

Esser argued the state GOP was in much better shape than it was four years ago when he took the reins, but Wilbur said Republicans should have done better in the 2010 elections given the national wave.

Four-year-old shoots mom; dad charged

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. – A Kitsap Peninsula man has been charged with reckless endangerment after his 4-year-old son shot his mom.

The Kitsap Sun reports that Lawrence Becker pleaded not guilty in Kitsap County District Court on Friday.

Detectives said the 25-year-old Becker gave the boy a shotgun shell after he expressed an interest in guns. On Oct. 25, the boy loaded the shell into a shotgun and pulled the trigger as it was resting on a bed, hitting his mother. She was treated and released from a hospital that night.

The boy’s mother told the newspaper she turned away for a few moments as she was talking on the phone. Detectives said the shotgun and a couple rifles had been stored in a bedroom closet with no doors.

Reckless endangerment is a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.