In brief: Fraud messages ask for long-distance calls

Listen closely to your next phone message from the Washington Department of Revenue. It could be a fraud.

The department has received several tips that somebody is leaving messages for taxpayers asking them to call an 800 number with their tax number ready. When they dial the number, a recording tells them the DOR’s number has changed and instructs them to make an international call beginning with the digits 101 for which charges apply, department spokesman Mike Gowrylow said.

Tax numbers are already publicly available, he said.

“I think the whole idea is to get somebody to make a long-distance call,” Gowrylow said.

He said he doesn’t know of anyone who has followed through with the fraudulent request. The Washington State Patrol and FBI are helping investigate, he said.

Anyone who receives such a call is advised to hang up and call the DOR at (800) 647-7706.

However, the DOR often calls taxpayers with questions.

“Don’t consider every call you get from the Department of Revenue to be a scam, because it normally won’t be,” Gowrylow said.

– Nick Eaton

Pullman

3 applicants selected for WSU police chief

Washington State University has selected three candidates for its open campus police chief position.

The prospects will each visit the campus to talk with university groups, which will give input as WSU makes its selection, said Rich Heath, the school’s vice president for business affairs.

The finalists are Joel F. Fitzgerald, a lieutenant in the Philadelphia Police Department’s narcotics unit; Scott Shelton, police chief at the University of Missouri in Kansas City; and Chris Zimmerman, who has worked as police chief in Roy, Utah, according to a WSU news release.

Heath said that in addition to experience, the ability to manage the Police Department’s struggling budget will be important in a new chief.

WSU’s former police chief and his assistant stepped down during the spring after allegations surfaced that they had misused university computers by viewing and e-mailing sexually explicit material, and after WSU was ordered to give back pay to a police officer who sued for discrimination in the department.

The WSU Police Department also recently added Tasers to its arsenal after officers asked the administration for them, said Heath, who oversees the department.

“We’re convinced that with proper training they’re a useful tool,” he said. “This is another tool for them that they can avoid damage to other people or to themselves.”

– Nick Eaton

TWIN FALLS, idaho

Idaho soldier killed by roadside bomb

A soldier from Jerome was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense said Wednesday.

Army Pfc. Adam Davis was one of four soldiers killed Monday when a bomb detonated near their vehicle. The soldiers, all part of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, were patrolling the Sarobi District of southeastern Afghanistan.

Davis, 19, was stationed in Vicenza, Italy, for just a few weeks before he was deployed to Afghanistan, his father, Tim Davis said.

“We weren’t quite ready or thinking of him going into action,” Tim’s brother, Pastor Randy Davis, said. “He was stationed in (Italy). It’s not like he was stationed in Kabul or Baghdad.”

Adam Davis, the youngest of three siblings, dropped out of Twin Falls High School so he could get his GED at the College of Southern Idaho and enlist in the Army, his family said.

– Associated Press