In brief: Suspects arrested in shooting of deputy
PORTLAND – Doctors have decided to wait a day before operating on the Klamath County sheriff’s deputy who was shot in the face during a traffic stop involving a Jeep Cherokee.
Sheriff Frank Skrah said the surgery is now expected to happen in the afternoon today. Deputy Jason Weber remains in serious but stable condition at OHSU Hospital in Portland.
William Jack Parkerson has been charged with attempted aggravated murder in Wednesday’s shooting. Also arrested were Parkerson’s girlfriend and a man who police believe was in the Jeep Cherokee at the time of the shooting.
Government making land buyback offers
HELENA – The U.S. government has offered to buy land parcels in Arizona and Montana from 4,300 American Indians who have fractional ownership interests and give the land back to the tribes.
The Interior Department said Thursday it made offers totaling $19.2 million to 2,500 individual owners of land on Montana’s Northern Cheyenne reservation and $77.6 million to 1,836 individual owners of parcels on Arizona’s Gila River reservation.
The voluntary program is part of a $3.4 billion settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Montana. The lawsuit claimed Interior Department officials mismanaged trust money held by the government for hundreds of thousands of Indian landowners.
The program aims to consolidate as many parcels as possible after an 1887 law split tribal lands into individual allotments that were inherited by multiple heirs.
Polygamous man pleads guilty in child abuse case
POCATELLO, Idaho – A polygamous man who oversaw an Idaho home where nine boys were sent on repentance missions by Warren Jeffs has pleaded guilty to three counts of child abuse.
The Idaho State Journal reported that Nathan C. Jessop entered his plea Thursday in Pocatello. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and two years’ probation.
The nine boys were pulled out of a Pocatello home last month after the alleged abuse was reported by a boy who escaped.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a police report shows Jessop is accused of not feeding the boys, hitting them and sending them into the cold without jackets.
Jessop told police the boys are members of Jeffs’ Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who were sent to him after getting in trouble.
About 100 in Cascades on evacuation alert
PORTLAND – A complex of wildfires in the Cascade Range threatened residences near a mountain town Thursday and made the air unhealthy in a wide region of Oregon.
About 100 residents near the mountain town of Oakridge were on an evacuation alert after fire bosses briefly evacuated a mobile home park and about 60 houses Wednesday night, the Eugene Register-Guard reported.
The air quality in Klamath Falls deteriorated Wednesday to a level that’s unhealthy for sensitive groups, such as people with asthma, the state Department of Environmental Quality said.
The air was similarly dangerous in Bend, east of the Cascade Range, the agency said, while the air quality was judged as only “moderate” in the Eugene area on the west side. Between the two cities, the air was rated unhealthy at the center of the fire.
Lightning started the first fire two weeks ago, and it combined with two other fires.
The smoke wasn’t widely bothersome until the wind shifted Wednesday.
Firefighters hope cooler temperatures expected today will help tamp down the fire, but they said that may cause conditions that hold the smoke close to the ground through the Labor Day weekend.
Jerry Shortt, 70, said he and his cousin spent hours watering down his 7-acre property near Oakridge, using sprinklers and hoses as burned leaves rained down.