In brief: Hit-and-run victim will get ice cream

Spokane police rewarded a 2-year-old girl hit by a suspected drunken driver Monday with free ice cream for wearing her bicycle helmet.

Police said Tuesday that three new helmets already have been given to Danika Parker to replace the one destroyed Saturday evening after a motorist flattened the bicycle trailer she was riding in.

Timmy Nguyen, 22, is accused of driving drunk and hitting the trailer near East Maringo Drive and North Argonne Road, then driving away. Witnesses followed him to East Wellesley Avenue and North Pasadena Lane, where he was arrested.

Nguyen, a student at Gonzaga Law School, faces charges of felony hit-and-run and vehicular assault.

Police said Danika fractured her skull but is expected to recover.

A picture posted on the department’s Facebook page Tuesday showed the girl with road rash on her cheek but no other obvious injuries. Spokane police Officer Teresa Fuller gave her a coupon for ice cream at McDonald’s.

Dead man’s family discovers burglary

The family of a Western Washington man shot and killed nearly two weeks ago went to his Liberty Lake apartment to collect his things, only to find it burglarized and his newly purchased assault rifle missing.

Ryan Crews Mumm, 20, had been living in the area attending Spokane Community College, according to news reports.

He was shot and killed July 14 at Blue Stilly Park in Arlington, Wash., in what police described as a dispute over marijuana. Suspect Dennis R. Watters, 41, of Tulalip, is in jail.

Mumm grew up in Arlington and his family lives there. His sister, Jessica Olson, traveled to Liberty Lake to remove his items from the apartment at 22809 E. Country Vista Drive and found it burglarized. An open rifle case sat on the living room floor. Olson said Mumm had bought a firearm at Cabela’s a couple of months ago.

Superior Court gets new commissioner

Spokane County Superior Court announced Tuesday the appointment of an assistant attorney general to serve as a court commissioner to replace Joseph F. Valente, who is retiring after 27 years on the bench.

Presiding Judge Ellen Kalama Clark appointed Tony Rugel as the new Superior Court commissioner effective in early September.

Rugel earned his undergraduate degrees at Eastern Washington University before obtaining his law degree from the University of Puget Sound in Seattle.

After serving in private practice and as a deputy prosecutor in Okanogan County, Rugel spent the last eight years as an assistant attorney general representing the state Department of Social and Health Services.

Early voter returns lag behind 2010

A few days after primary election ballots were mailed, the Spokane County Elections Office has received ballots from 14,168 voters out of 269,580 ballots that were delivered last week, officials said.

The early returns following Tuesday’s mail delivery account for about 12 percent of an expected turnout of 45 percent of voters in the Aug. 7 primary election.

The early returns are slightly behind those in 2010 but on par with 2008.

Voters have until Aug. 7 to get their ballots in the mail or into voter drop boxes at libraries and the county elections office at 1033 W. Gardner Ave.

Ballot returns typically peak on the day of the election and the day after the election. That means that vote percentages can change significantly in late counting.