Police say man flashed fake badge

Spokane police have arrested a man who witnesses said flashed a fake badge to two female employees at NorthTown mall and asked them to perform sex acts.

Curt D. Cameron, 46, who said he lives at 3408 W. Walton Ave., was arrested Wednesday afternoon after mall security guards identified him as the man who had impersonated a police officer, police spokesman Dick Cottam said in a news release.

The two mall employees alerted a security guard after Cameron told them he was a police officer, flashed a badge that said “Special Officer” and displayed a pair of handcuffs, Cottam said.

When questioned, Cameron told officers that he had questioned the two at two businesses about sexual matters. Cameron also said what he had done was “stupid,” Cottam said.

Cameron was booked into jail on the charges of criminal impersonation and communication with a minor for immoral purposes. A charge of possession of marijuana was added when officers searched Cameron and found some of the drug in his clothes, Cottam said.

Blaze damages home in north Spokane

Fire severely damaged a northeast Spokane home Friday night.

Spokane Fire Department battalion Chief Joel Fielder said the blaze destroyed the second floor of the home at 2318 E. Providence.

The cause of the fire, which was reported about 10:10 p.m., remained under investigation. No one was home, and firefighters were unable to find the owner immediately Friday.

Fielder said the home had sawdust insulation, which made the fire difficult to extinguish. Spokane County records indicate that the home was built in 1905.

Apple tray supply OK despite fire at plant

Wenatchee You’ll still be able to have your apple a day.

A fire Thursday at the Keyes Fibre plant here destroyed about 5 million paper apple trays, just weeks before the Wenatchee Valley apple harvest.

But the company expects to have enough to supply local orchardists, general manager Ted Smith said.

“Our full emphasis will be satisfying the apple market,” Smith told the Wenatchee World.

The plant had another fire, on Jan. 23, but Smith said Thursday’s blaze was just about one-third as big. Investigators never officially determined what started the January fire.

Duwamish fish, crabs show higher toxin levels

Seattle Fish and crabs collected from the lower Duwamish River show higher levels of toxins than previously detected by scientists, state health officials said as they advised residents not to eat fish from the river that empties into Seattle’s Elliott Bay.

Officials previously had warned people to limit eating fish from the Duwamish to once a month.

High levels of PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, were found in seafood collected from the river last summer, the state Health Department said Wednesday. Officials advised against eating fish, including perch, flounder, English sole, and crab.

The Environmental Protection Agency last fall found PCB levels well above safety thresholds, an average 716 parts per billion in the skinless fillet of an English sole, for example. Tests between 1992 and 1999 found an average 267 parts per billion.