In brief: Car fire elicits heavy response

A car fire in the Coeur d’Alene Resort parking garage Tuesday evening sent up a smoke cloud visible throughout town and crowded the busy downtown area with emergency vehicles.

Eight emergency vehicles responded to the blaze, which occurred on the fourth floor of the parking garage about 6:30 p.m. Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, said Kenny Gabriel, Coeur d’Alene fire chief.

“It took us longer to get up there than it did to put it out,” Gabriel said. “We were very lucky it was nothing more.”

The large amount of smoke prompted the heavy response, he said.

“When we could see smoke like that from all over town, it makes us nervous,” he said.

Moscow, Idaho

Group preserves historic elevator

A 92-year-old grain elevator will be preserved after a group of Moscow-area investors bought the building.

“It took a while to get the financing put together,” said John Anderson, of Viola, who in February formed the Anderson Group to buy the concrete grain elevator in the midst of an area whose agricultural past is quickly being converted to other uses.

His group bought the grain elevator, the land and other structures on the site from a pair of developers who planned to knock it down. The price wasn’t disclosed.

The former Latah County Grain Growers elevator on South Jackson Street was shuttered two years ago. It will soon be surrounded by a safety fence, which will allow workers to clean the building and its grounds safely. The site has some minor fuel contamination, Anderson said.

Boise

Helicopter crash injures two

Two people were injured when a helicopter crashed Tuesday morning on a training runway about five miles south of the Boise Airport.

Boise Fire Department Deputy Chief Dave Hanneman said two occupants, a man and a woman, were transported to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise. He had no information about the severity of their injuries, and the hospital declined to release any details.

“It’s tipped over on its side; the main rotor on the top is heavily damaged,” Hanneman said. “The bubble on the front of the helicopter is smashed also. It came in to us as a hard landing, but obviously it’s more than that.”

Larissa Stouffer, an airport spokeswoman, said the crash occurred on a runway that’s not used by commercial or general aviation for regular takeoffs and landings.

The land belongs to the airport and is used by the Idaho Air National Guard and local aviation companies for training, she said.

Spokane

Zehm estate files claim against city

An attorney representing the estate of Otto Zehm, the mentally disabled janitor who died last year after he was Tasered, beaten and bound by Spokane police officers, has filed a claim against the city for using excessive force and violating Zehm’s civil rights.

The claim filed this week seeks $2.9 million in damages.

The FBI is still investigating the fatal confrontation.

In a letter addressed to Assistant City Attorney Rocky Treppiedi, attorney Jeffry Finer said the claim is justified because the Spokane Police Department violated its own policies by restraining Zehm for 13 minutes on his stomach and putting a plastic mask over his nose and mouth without connecting it to an oxygen supply during the struggle at a North Side convenience store.

Three minutes later, Zehm stopped breathing. He never regained consciousness after the March 18, 2006, encounter and died two days later.

Acting Police Chief Jim Nicks said at the time that his officers acted appropriately.

The city attorney’s office plans to study the claim and respond within the required 60 days, city spokeswoman Marlene Feist said late Tuesday.