In brief: Seattle mayor wants to buy gunshot-locator

Sun., Sept. 16, 2012

Seattle mayor wants to buy gunshot-locator

SEATTLE – Seattle’s mayor wants to hire 10 new police officers, invest in new video equipment for police cars and buy a gunshot-locator system.

Mike McGinn has included more than $1 million toward those goals in his proposed 2013-’14 budget.

The city wants to install up to 52 mobile gunshot locator units, with each having a minimum 600-foot radius range and the ability to pinpoint a gunshot to within a 50-foot radius. The units also can stream video and determine the caliber of weapon that was fired with a 90 percent accuracy rate.

Hiring 10 new officers would bring the department’s total to 1,310.

McGinn will announce complete details of his proposed budget next week.

L.A. lawyer considers helping Seattle police

SEATTLE – A civil-rights attorney who has spent years working on police reform in Los Angeles was in Seattle this week to consider advising Mayor Mike McGinn on repairing the police department’s relations with minority communities.

The Seattle Times reported that Connie Rice met with the mayor and Seattle Police Department brass to get a handle on the work needed to be done.

In Los Angeles, Rice engaged in face-to-face negotiations with some of the city’s toughest street gangs in the 1990s, a time when the city was a virtual war zone. She won lawsuits against the city over police abuse, transportation, housing and schooling, and in 2003 she was chosen to complete the investigation into the LAPD’s famously corrupt Rampart Division.

McGinn selected Rice last month to advise him as the city moves forward with the recent settlement agreement with the Department of Justice over findings that Seattle officers routinely use excessive force. Rice says she wants to see how she can help before committing to the job.

WSU student falls from fraternity window

PULLMAN – Police in Pullman said a Washington State University student fell three stories from a fraternity house window and was taken to Pullman Regional Hospital with undisclosed injuries.

Police told the Lewiston Tribune the 19-year-old man fell about 3 a.m. Friday at the Phi Kappa Tau house on California Street. Police said he was found in a basement window well, and that he was conscious and breathing.

It’s the second fraternity fall in a three-day span in the region. At the University of Idaho on Wednesday, 21-year-old Kurt Wrobel fell two stories from his fraternity house while trying to get into a locked room through an outside window.

He was air-lifted to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane for treatment of facial fractures and other injuries.

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