Issaquah police alert parents after near-abduction

Police are reminding parents to review safety precautions with their children in the wake of a man's attempt to lure a 13-year-old girl into his car.

Issaquah police said the girl was walking in the 200 block of West Sunset Way on Friday afternoon when a man drove a maroon SUV past her, turned around, stopped and asked her to get into his car.

The man was described as white, probably in his 30s, with messy black and grayish hair, hair on his chin and a gray-green dress shirt with a brown tie.

Olympia

One killed as car vaults I-5 overpass

A car driven by a 21-year-old woman sped through an intersection, careened off an I-5 overpass near Olympia and landed on the freeway pavement below, killing the passenger, critically injuring the driver and closing freeway lanes in both directions.

Witnesses to the 2 a.m. Saturday accident say the driver, Kaylin Burgett, 21, of Lacey, was going at least 50 mph when she failed to make a right turn near the overpass at Wheeler Street.

The car, a 2002 Honda Civic, vaulted over the freeway guardrail and landed 30 feet below. Her passenger, Jeremy Cole, 26, died at the scene. Burgett was flown to Harborview Medical Center.

Alcohol is not believed to be a factor, and investigators do not consider the accident a criminal matter, said Washington State Patrol spokesman Bill Ashcroft.

Seattle

Pedersen holds slim lead over Street

Jamie Pedersen held his lead over Jim Street on Saturday in the battle for the Democratic nomination to replace Ed Murray in the state House of Representatives.

Pedersen, an attorney active in gay-rights cases, had 245 more votes than Street, a former Seattle city councilman, after more absentee votes were counted. The Democratic nomination is tantamount to election in Seattle's 43d Legislative District.

Fairwood

Incorporation fades as ballots are tallied

The chances of Fairwood, a bedroom suburb east of Renton, becoming a city diminished Saturday with the latest count of absentee ballots.

Opponents of incorporation widened their lead to 224 votes, or 51.8 percent. Election results will be certified Friday. If approved, Fairwood, with about 24,000 residents, would become King County's 39th city.

Clark County

Dismal Nitch to be part of national park

Clark's Dismal Nitch, 154 acres near the mouth of the Columbia River, has been transferred to the National Park Service to become part of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, according to The Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit that is working to preserve such sites.

The area, in Clark County on the Washington side of the river, is where part of the Lewis and Clark expedition was stranded for six days in 1805 by thunderstorms, wind and high waves. Eventually they abandoned most of their supplies, buried their canoes and retreated into the cedar forest. Today the area is punctuated by stands of spruce and hemlock and is known as a habitat for bald eagles, beavers, mountain lions and black bears.

Seattle

One killed, one injured in wrong-way accident

A 30-year-old woman died and a man of unknown age was seriously injured when their car was struck by a vehicle heading toward them in the wrong lane, police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said.

The driver of the wrong-way car fled but was arrested after a search by a police canine unit, Whitcomb said.

The accident, reported at 1:25 a.m. Saturday, occurred after the driver of a Mazda Protégé westbound in the 100 block of Southwest Cloverdale Street saw a Geo Storm headed toward him eastbound in the same lane, Whitcomb said.

The Mazda swerved into the opposite lane in an effort to avoid an accident, but the cars collided, spinning the Mazda around and sending the Geo into a ravine and then into blackberry bushes. The woman, a passenger in the Mazda, died at the scene, and the driver was taken to Harborview Medical Center with major head injuries, Whitcomb said.

The 22-year-old driver of the Geo fled his vehicle but was arrested and taken to Harborview for treatment of injuries. Whitcomb said he would be booked into the county jail for investigation of vehicular homicide.

Names and hometowns of the crash victims and the suspect were not released Saturday.

Federal Way

Suspected carjackers elude police bullets

A police officer fired at a vehicle when two car thieves drove a stolen car directly toward officers and a person they were holding in custody Saturday morning, police said.

Police encountered the three people after 4:03 a.m. when they responded to a report of a car theft in progress at The Heights apartments at 125 S.W. Campus Drive. They detained one suspect, then saw two more people entering a vehicle they believed to have been hot-wired.

The driver drove toward police officers, one of whom fired two shots, shattering a passenger window. Police chased the car north on Interstate 5 before losing sight of it near Martin Luther King Way.

The car, which was not found, is a black 1998 Honda Civic with Washington license 269MLS. The passenger window may have been damaged.

Police have not released the name of the officer who fired at the car; he has been placed on paid administrative leave pending a review of the incident, standard department procedure.

Police request that anyone who sees the vehicle call 911. Anyone with information about the two young male suspects should call Federal Way police at 253-835-6856.

Fort Lewis

Commander reverses death penalty call

Fort Lewis commander Lt. Gen. James Dubik reversed his earlier decision that a soldier accused of killing two people outside a tavern should face the death penalty if convicted.

Dubik gave no explanation, but Army officials said the change followed a review of his original decision in May regarding Jamaal A. Lewis, a communications specialist.

Lewis, 22, is charged with killing Pfc. Jason Jowers, 26, and Crystal Hurley-McDowell, 23, during an attempted robbery outside a Lakewood tavern in September 2005.

Trial is scheduled next month. Lewis now faces maximum punishment of life without possibility of parole.

Capital cases are rare in the military. There are six men on the military's death row, and the last execution was in 1961.

Two other soldiers involved in the case have already been convicted.

Pvt. Kevin Lambers was convicted in May of two counts of making false statements and one count of being an accessory after the fact in the killings. Pvt. Joseaf U. Griessett pleaded guilty in March to being an accessory to a crime after the fact, obstructing justice and making a false statement.

Lambers, Griessett and Lewis were assigned to Group Support Company of the 1st Special Forces Group at Fort Lewis.

Seattle Times staff and The Associated Press