Kevin Taylor

SANDPOINT – Harvey Thompson, a longtime Bonner County cop who is currently on suspension, took the left turn off U.S. Highway 95 and chugged his pickup truck up the hill toward the sheriff's office north of Sandpoint early in the morning of Oct. 12. When he got there, Thompson nosed his truck, festooned with campaign signs for someone else, right into Sheriff Phil Jarvis' personal parking slot and – voila! – several issues about the 2004 race for Bonner County sheriff seemed to click into focus: The campaigning has often been bare-knuckle and angry. Its essence comes down to a referendum on Jarvis. The behavior of officers is a hot topic.

A second National Guard soldier – scheduled to be in Iraq in a month – has challenged the military's "stop-loss" policy that bars soldiers from leaving the military at the end of their enlistment, according to the law firm representing the soldier. His challenge comes on the heels of the Pentagon finding a way to have the first case dismissed. The California soldier, known in court documents as John Doe 2, followed another California Guard soldier, John Doe 1, in questioning the army's authority to extend his term. Stop-loss has been called a "back-door draft" by the Military Officers Association of America and by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and Republican Sen. John McCain, both veterans of the Vietnam War.

A Ponderay, Idaho, man was found dead Saturday afternoon up the St. Joe River, the victim of an apparent hunting accident, the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office reported. Steven Wayne Seppala, 43, was the third hunter to die in as many days in North Idaho and the fourth hunter to die this season – only two weeks into it. Two other hunters and a woodcutter were reported missing in the woods last weekend, but were found unharmed after brief searches.

A college freshman who allegedly admitted supplying a dose of the hallucinogen LSD to a young woman last week will not face manslaughter charges until the dead woman's autopsy results have been studied, Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas said Monday. "We just can't file involuntary manslaughter charges without the forensic autopsy results," Douglas said. "We don't want any surprises. We need the forensic autopsy to determine the exact cause of death and the degree of toxicity in the victim."

A college freshman who allegedly admitted supplying a dose of the hallucinogen LSD to a young woman last week will not face manslaughter charges until the woman's autopsy results have been studied, Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas said Monday. "We just can't file involuntary manslaughter charges without the forensic autopsy results," Douglas said. "We don't want any surprises. We need the forensic autopsy to determine the exact cause of death and the degree of toxicity in the victim."

A 43-year-old Coeur d'Alene man died late Thursday of injuries suffered when a pickup he was driving went over a steep embankment on a Forest Service road east of Lake Pend Oreille that afternoon, the Idaho State Police reported. An ISP report said two Coeur d'Alene men were in the truck when, for causes not yet determined, it went off the road – a narrow gravel road near the remote village of Lakeview in the Kaniksu National Forest.

An 18-year-old college freshman who has been in a coma since a drug overdose Tuesday was taken off life support Friday at her family's request and died without regaining consciousness, police said. Coeur d'Alene police say the North Idaho College student who gave her the drug will be charged with manslaughter.

The former chief financial officer for two community hospitals in North Idaho was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for embezzlement and was ordered to repay more than $38,000 on two counts of grand theft. First District Court Judge Fred Gibler allowed Richard Lee Mikkelson to begin his prison term with a six-month "rider" at a state prison boot camp to determine if Mikkelson is a candidate to serve his sentence on probation. Mikkelson was told to report to the Shoshone County Jail by Friday for transportation to a state prison.

For the second time this week and the fifth time since May, a North Idaho woman who initially said she had been sexually attacked has recanted to police. Coeur d'Alene police detectives have determined a report of an attempted rape Wednesday night to be false, and are preparing to seek payment from the alleged victim to cover the cost of investigating.

The Idaho Supreme Court assembled in a Coeur d'Alene courtroom Wednesday morning to consider whether police officers are protected from being sued for civil damages even if their actions cause injury during the course of an arrest. The justices – on the road hearing appeals in North Idaho this week – were asked to consider whether the actions of two local police officers are shielded by qualified immunity in light of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the issue. This is the first time the Idaho Supreme Court is revisiting qualified immunity for law enforcement under what is known as the Saucier test. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Saucier in 2001.

A young North Idaho man who slapped a deputy and then dove into the Spokane River to get away early Wednesday morning has not been seen since. The Kootenai County Sheriff's Department, after searching the area with divers for several hours, is hoping to hear from Joseph Allan Peterson, 20, of Hauser Lake. "We want to get the word out to his friends: 'Look, it's a misdemeanor warrant, for crying out loud.' We just want to know if he's alive," Capt. Ben Wolfinger, information officer for the Sheriff's Department, said.

There were plenty of bruises – to apples – but only minor injuries when a semi-truck loaded with the fruit flipped over and spilled its load while descending Fourth of July Pass on Interstate 90 on Monday night, the Idaho State Police reported. Cleanup was continuing Tuesday afternoon. According to an ISP report, speed was at the core of the accident: A 2002 Freightliner driven by 24-year-old Zoran Pavic, of Ontario, Canada, took a curve too fast about a mile down from the summit in the eastbound lanes.

Jane Wear was in court Tuesday evening, and her judgment was delivered with flowers and words of love and praise. A little more than a year ago, a night like this seemed beyond imagining for the 34-year-old Coeur d'Alene woman, who began using methamphetamine and marijuana when she dropped out of school at 13.

A 19-year-old college student's report that she was raped in Coeur d'Alene on Monday was unfounded, Coeur d'Alene Police said Tuesday. Police were called to an apartment complex near the city golf course at 12:15 p.m. Monday after the woman said she had been accosted in a stairwell, forced into her apartment and then raped. She described her attacker as black, stocky and about 6-foot-2. The area was sealed off as police and detectives canvassed the neighborhood.

It was such a civilian thing to say. "You guys are pretty much done here, huh?" a visitor to Fort Bliss, Texas, asked a group of Idaho National Guard soldiers a couple of weeks ago.

Three technicians at the Coeur d'Alene Casino have lost their jobs and may have left the area as Kootenai County Sheriff's Department investigators look into suspected embezzlement of nearly $3,000 from slot machines. "The case is still under investigation. No one has been charged yet," Jerry Kreig, chief operations officer at the casino, said Thursday. The technicians suspected of pocketing improper payouts, "are no longer employed here" Kreig said.

Showing up for a meeting with three attorneys in power suits is one way to stand out from the crowd, and it's an approach that worked Tuesday for the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's Robert Matt during a meeting of stakeholders involved in the convoluted relicensing of the Post Falls Dam. Matt, director of the tribe's lake management program, told the stakeholders group that the tribe has been asking for two years for information about how the lake and the Spokane River would appear if the Post Falls Dam didn't exist. The three-lawyer backup was a signal that the tribe is serious about seeing the data and doesn't want Avista to submit its fast-approaching license application without addressing a free-flowing river.

An ogre or two tried to take away the charm of Kinder-Magic over the weekend. A thief or thieves looking for something to steal broke into the private preschool and kindergarten near downtown Coeur d'Alene and rummaged through rooms crowded with happy memories and colorful things.