Arrest made after man is found fatally shot

WHITE CENTER — One man is dead and another is in custody on suspicion of homicide after a shooting Friday night.

Police found the unidentified victim shot in the head, his pickup smashed into a tree. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he died just before 11 p.m. on Friday.

Police believe the victim was parked in a driveway near the intersection of Southwest 116th Street and 13th Avenue Southwest when he tried to evade his assailant and was shot. Detective Christina Bartlett, a King County sheriff's spokeswoman, said the victim backed out of the drive and crossed the road before slamming into the tree.

The suspect in custody was a witness. Police say officers recovered the gun but do not know of a motive for the shooting.

800 pounds of pot seized at border

BLAINE — It was a busy week for customs agents at the U.S.-Canada commercial-truck crossing, as two separate attempts to smuggle drugs across the border resulted in the seizure of nearly 800 pounds of marijuana.

On Tuesday, an X-ray machine used to view contents of commercial vehicles revealed 400 pounds of marijuana hidden beneath lumber on a logging truck. An X-ray machine on Thursday detected another 378 pounds hidden in a truck transporting salmon. Both trucks were coming into the United States from Canada.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in Blaine estimated the street value of the marijuana at $4 million.

Three Canadian citizens were arrested and taken to jail in Whatcom County.

Driver killed after car crashes into pillar

EVERETT — A 32-year-old Burlington, Skagit County, man was killed before dawn yesterday after losing control of his vehicle.

Martin Crapson was driving west on Highway 204 at 5:20 a.m. when his sedan crossed the center line and crashed into a concrete pillar beneath Highway 2, said a Washington State Patrol spokesman. He died at the scene.

The State Patrol suspects excessive speed was involved.

Chelan County opts out of food-aid plan

WENATCHEE — Chelan County has become the seventh county this year to decline to participate in a state plan to make it easier for unemployed workers to get federal food aid.

"Philosophically, we didn't like the idea of food stamps being given to able-bodied adults with no dependents for nothing," County Commissioner Buell Hawkins said.

The Department of Social and Health Services on April 1 waived work requirements to obtain federal food assistance, citing the state's unemployment rate, the second-highest in the nation at 7 percent.

Counties, however, have the option of blocking the yearlong waiver and the Chelan County Commission unanimously chose to do so earlier this month. Klickitat, Ferry, Spokane, Kittitas, Benton and Pend Oreille counties already have opted out.

"Those people ought to be required to do some work," Hawkins said. "This may sound callous, but there really is no such thing as a free lunch."

Chelan County's unemployment rate is typically higher than the state overall, varying between a summer low of 6 percent and a winter high of more than 10 percent.

"Most of this stuff just comes across our desk and we don't pay much attention to it," said Chelan County Commissioner Ron Walter, who initiated the board's move to block the waiver. "I just happened to really read the details of this one, and decided there's no reason to allow this waiver. There are plenty of jobs available in our county."

3 Crown Pacific sawmills to shut temporarily

GILCHRIST, Ore. — Crown Pacific will temporarily shut three Northwest sawmills, including those in Port Angeles and Marysville, after Friday's last shift.

John Ernst, vice president of manufacturing, said as many as 20 workers in Port Angeles, 30 in Marysville and 40 in Gilchrist will be affected by the curtailment, necessitated by a soft market.

No more logs will run through the sawmills though the production of lumber will continue until inventories run out in about two weeks, Ernst said. He did not predict when work at the sawmills might resume.

Drunken driver sentenced in fatality

TACOMA — A drunken driver who ran over a 44-year-old woman with his truck and snowmobile trailer has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Thomas Larkin sentenced Stephen Maurice Beliveau on Friday for vehicular homicide and leaving the accident scene in the death of Desere Mitchell last year.

Beliveau had said he never saw Mitchell when she walked in front of his truck outside a private club in Lakewood on Feb. 22, 2002.

When Beliveau drove away, a witness followed him. Police dispatched to his home described him as belligerent and uncooperative. His blood-alcohol level was 0.20 percent, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.

Mitchell's skirt was found hanging from the snowmobile trailer.

Radio personality ordered to stay in jail

SPOKANE — A judge has ordered former Inland Empire radio personality Brad Schilling, who has previously jumped bail, to remain in jail until his sex-crime trial.

He is charged with 27 felonies, including bail jumping, child molestation, sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography.

Schilling, 34, went to Mexico after being released from jail on $100,000 bond in 2001. He was returned last week from Guadalajara.

"Power Brad" Schilling originally was arrested in May 2001. He was the morning disc jockey on a popular alternative rock station, KAEP-FM.

The sentencing range for the child-molestation charges — the most serious he faces — is 12 to 16 years in prison.

Times staff, news services