In brief: Icicle Valley camps closed by washout
A washout has cut off access to three Forest Service campgrounds in the Icicle Valley.
The Wenatchee River Ranger District recreation manager, Greg Thayer, says the closure immediately affects about 300 people who would normally camp in the area over the Memorial Day weekend.
Melting snow and a rock slide on Sunday forced Icicle Creek over Icicle Road about 15 miles west of Leavenworth. It’s the only access road to Chatter Creek, Rock Island and Black Pine campgrounds.
Forest Service officials don’t know when the road will reopen.
SEATTLE
Possible breach at courthouse
Did a handgun slip past a security checkpoint at the King County Courthouse?
King County sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart says a civilian security scanner operating the X-ray machine at the tunnel entrance to the courthouse spotted a pair of handcuffs and what appeared to be a gun inside a bag Tuesday morning. But by the time the scanner notified the armed sheriff’s marshal on duty at the checkpoint, the bag and its owner were gone.
Both the sheriff’s office and the King County Facilities Division are investigating. Sheriff’s officials have reviewed security tapes but couldn’t identify the man.
The unidentified screener was back at work Wednesday morning, but Facilities Director Kathy Brown says the woman was placed on paid administrative leave that afternoon.
If a handgun did slip past, Brown says it was a “very serious security breach.”
The metal detectors and screeners were set up at the courthouse in 1995 after a shooting in which an estranged husband killed his pregnant wife and two other women.
LACEY, Wash.
Lawmaker’s mother dies
A state legislator’s mother has died, apparently after being hit by a car in a parking lot in Lacey.
Police say 92-year-old Lillian Sheldon, the mother of Democratic Sen. Tim Sheldon, of Potlatch, was found lying behind a car on May 9. Thurston County Deputy Coroner Neoma Greenfield says the hip injury was a factor in her death Monday at a hospital.
Tim Sheldon says his mother said she was hit by a car, and police Lt. Phil Comstock says investigators are trying to verify that. Comstock says there is no evidence that a crime was committed.
Lillian Sheldon lived at Panorama retirement center in Lacey and belonged to a historical society. Survivors include two other children: Mason County Superior Court Judge Toni Sheldon and Tom Sheldon, a former civilian lawyer for the Air Force.
LONGVIEW, Wash.
Racist graffiti perturbs residents
Residents of a block in Longview, Wash., are unhappy about a rash of racist and Nazi graffiti.
Bright orange swastikas and “white pride” symbols appeared Tuesday on sidewalks, trees, outbuildings and a truck in the 500 block of 15th Avenue.
Kay White, who is white, says the neighborhood has become a frequent target. A tree in front of her house bore the label “SWP,” short for Supreme White Power, and a swastika was on the garage door.
White says the graffiti distressed her 14-year-old daughter Natisha, whose great-great-great- grandmother was a black civil rights pioneer in Longview.
Lisa Velasquez, a friend of graffiti victims, says it must be stopped because “you never know when it can turn into a really violent crime.”