Work will close I-5 north lanes
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The state Department of Transportation plans to close all northbound lanes just south of downtown to repair a variable-message sign and replace light bulbs in the tunnel under the Washington State Convention and Trade Center.
The closure will come in stages. The department plans to close one lane at South Holgate Street at 8 p.m., a second lane at 10 p.m., a third at 11. At 11:30, it will close all northbound lanes at the exit to Interstate 90, diverting all northbound traffic onto the collector/distributor road that parallels the main freeway and re-enters the I-5 mainline near Olive Street.
That means all northbound vehicles will be funneled into one lane. The department says all northbound lanes will reopen at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Southbound lanes won't be affected by the work.
Man who exchanged shots with police officers charged
SEATTLE — The man who exchanged shots with Seattle police after allegedly robbing a sandwich shop Sunday has been charged with two counts of robbery, attempting to elude police and assault.
Derond Lee Potts, 22, of Tukwila is being held in King County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail. He recently moved here from North Carolina, where he had an extensive criminal history, police said.
Prosecutors accuse Potts of using a handgun to demand cash from a Subway Sandwich shop and one of its customers, in the 2700 block of Fourth Avenue South. The charges say Potts then drove off and Officer Daniel Espinoza, who was nearby, and other officers chased him to Burien, where he got out of his car in a shopping mall and fired once at Espinoza.
Espinoza and Officer Michael Waters returned fire and Potts was hit in his shoulder and lower back, police said. He was arrested and taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he spent several days before being transferred to jail.
Name of man killed by police in Lake City home released
SEATTLE — The man shot and killed during a confrontation with Seattle police Tuesday morning in Lake City has been identified as Anthony James Shuster, 21.
Shuster was shot several times by SWAT Officer Marty Heuchert. Police say Shuster lunged at Heuchert and several other officers with a knife in a home in the 13200 block of 27th Avenue Northeast.
Police had been called to the home by Shuster's girlfriend, who said he was threatening suicide after they had argued.
An inquest to determine the facts surrounding the shooting — a mandatory procedure in King County whenever an officer kills someone — has not yet been scheduled.
Envelope with powder apparently was hoax
TUMWATER, Thurston County — A white powder that prompted the shutdown of a mail-distribution center for the state capital and neighboring areas was apparently a hoax, a postal official said yesterday.
The powder spilled when an envelope being processed through a machine split open about 9 p.m. Thursday in the U.S. Postal Service building that handles mail for Thurston, Mason and Grays Harbor counties, including state government offices in Olympia.
The letter has been traced to McCleary, a small town about 10 miles west of Olympia. The powder tested negative for anthrax and other toxins.
Eight men among the approximately 45 workers at the postal building Thursday night were decontaminated and access to the building was barred. Delivery trucks were kept from leaving or entering the building, halting pickups of mail for local delivery and drop-offs of mail for sorting.
Oil-spill victims appeal ruling that would lower fine
ANCHORAGE — Plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil-spill-damage lawsuit have asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a ruling that $5 billion in punitive damages is too much.
A three-member appeals panel of the circuit court ruled three weeks ago that the punitive-damage award set by a jury was excessive. The panel sent the case back to a lower court for a new calculation of what Exxon should pay commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others harmed by the 1989 oil spill.
The motion filed this week asks the three-judge panel to reverse itself or, failing that, requests a hearing before a panel of 11 appeals court judges.
Endangered status backed for state's pygmy rabbits
EPHRATA, Grant County — The Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit is nearing extinction and should receive federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said yesterday.
There are fewer than 50 of the one-pound rabbits — the smallest of the species in North America — in Douglas County in Central Washington.
The pygmy-rabbit population has been hurt by losses of sagebrush habitat and genetic diversity and by disease and predators, the agency said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has given emergency protection to the rabbit for 240 days and is proposing it be classified as endangered. The state already has listed the pygmy rabbit as endangered under state law and begun a breeding program so that captive-bred animals can be released into the wild.
Store personnel and thief shoot at each other in lot
LAKEWOOD — Shoppers ducked for cover yesterday as a discount-store manager and a security guard exchanged gunshots with a thief in a parking lot, authorities said.
A worker at a nearby espresso stand was wounded in the foot in the exchange of as many as 20 gunshots.
Tacoma Discount World manager Curtis Fidler said he and the store security officer chased a man out the front door of the business about 11 a.m. after the man smashed a jewelry case and ran off with several gold chains, knocking over a shopper. Fidler said he and the security guard pulled their own guns when the thief began firing.
Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said gunfire hit three cars in the lot.
A pickup apparently used by the thief and an accomplice was recovered about an hour later.
Information is from Seattle Times staff members and news services.