12-year-old girl may have been abducted
Tacoma police have issued an Amber alert for a 12-year-old girl who may have been abducted Wednesday night.
Zina Linnik, a Ukranian girl, was last seen at 9:45 p.m. in Tacoma. She was wearing a pink T-shirt, pink, orange and yellow capri pants and red flip-flops. She has blond hair and is 4-foot-10 and weighs 80 pounds.
A witness reported hearing a scream from the alley behind Linnik’s home and then seeing an Asian man get into an older gray van and drive away.
The van’s license plate may contain the numbers 1677.
Anyone with information is asked to call 911.
– Staff reports
OROFINO, Idaho
Woman held in death of toddler in hot car
A 33-year-old Orofino-area woman has been arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and felony injury to a child after a 15-month-old boy was found dead in a hot car.
Rita Johnston, the child’s stepgrandmother, remained in the Clearwater County Jail on $15,000 bond Thursday.
Clearwater County Prosecutor Clayne Tyler said the child was in the car about five hours when passersby noticed him and called authorities. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene around 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Johnston’s attorney, Clearwater County Public Defender Jack Hathaway, said his client was distraught. The child’s name was withheld, pending family notification.
The Orofino incident was on the minds of Spokane fire and police Thursday when they received a call about 6:15 p.m. of a baby left in a vehicle in the 7800 block of North Division. According to a press release, firefighters found the infant covered in sweat and not moving. Firefighters broke out a window and retrieved the baby. “She was instantly responsive,” Officer Teresa Fuller said in a press release.
The baby’s mother, Brenda K. Leu, came outside and told officers that she had just gone into the store for a quick trip. She was cited and released for reckless endangerment. The baby was not injured.
– Staff and wire reports
Spokane county
Departments honor dead firefighter
Members of the Spokane and Spokane Valley fire departments are honoring a Kennewick firefighter who died Thursday on duty.
The two departments will fly their flags at half-staff and wear black bands across their badges until the day after Eric Lyons’ funeral. Lyons, 38, graduated from Ferris High School and has family in the Spokane area.
He died from a medical emergency at the station where he worked, according to the Kennewick Fire Department.
Lyons graduated from the Spokane Community College’s fire science program and worked for a time for Spokane County Fire District 8, said Brian Schaeffer, assistant chief of the Spokane Fire Department.
Funeral details have not been announced.