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2A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2017 Truck removed, driver indicted after failed escape ‘I’m not getting arrested today’ By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Timofey Erofeeff was indicted on several charges Thursday after an attempted escape from police into the Columbia River, while his red Ford F-150 pickup was lifted out of the water by a crane at North Tongue Point. Erofeeff, 27, from Scotts Timofey Mills in Mar- Erofeeff ion County, was observed Wednesday morning trespass- ing on boats at North Tongue Point and was approached by officers Kevin Berry and Thomas Litwin of the Astoria Police Department. In a court document, Berry described approach- ing Erofeeff’s pickup to arrest him after learning he also had a parole violation from Deschutes County. “Erofeeff proceeded to take off at a high rate of speed straight away from me,” Berry said. “Erofeeff turned onto a dead-end pier and began accel- erating. Erofeeff launched his vehicle off the end of the pier, into the Columbia River at a rate of speed I estimate to be about 45 mph.” Erofeeff left his sinking vehicle and started swimming Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian ABOVE, Timofey Erofeeff launched his Ford F-150 truck into the Columbia River in an attempted escape from police. The truck was removed by a crane and taken to a local tow yard. RIGHT, Ensign Kira Adams with the Coast Guard’s Incident Management Team in Astoria observes employees with WCT Marine & Construction lift the red Ford F-150 truck out of the Columbia River and onto a dock at North Tongue Point using a crane. across a side channel of the Columbia toward an island about one-third of a mile away. He began to struggle, and the Coast Guard was called for a possible rescue. But he made it back to the pier, where he was thrown a life jacket and ring and eventually rescued by employees from nearby ship- wright WCT Marine & Con- struction Inc. He was taken by ambu- lance to Columbia Memorial Hospital for minor injuries and hypothermia. “When I asked him why he took off in his vehicle, he told (me) he knew I was going to arrest him and he thought to himself, ‘I’m not getting arrested today,’” Berry said. During a videoconfer- ence Thursday from Clat- sop County Jail, Erofeeff was indicted by Deputy District Attorney Steven Chamberlin on one count of first-degree burglary, a Class A felony, for attempting to steal from the moored vessel The Zephyr, and another count of attempt- ing to elude police with a vehicle, a Class C felony. He also faces misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, refusing to obey a police offi- cer, third-degree escape, sec- ond-degree criminal trespass- Coast Guard ing and offensive littering for the truck, fluids and debris in the river. “It was just a long, ardu- ous process finding the truck,” Jeremy Milligan, a shipwright with WCT Marine, said of bringing in a diver to search underwater. After locating the pickup, WTC Marine brought a crane out on the pier, hooked the truck to a tow hitch and lifted it onto the dock. The Coast Guard’s Incident Manage- ment Division oversaw the removal but ordered no ongo- ing cleanup. The truck was taken by Classic Towing to a yard in Miles Crossing. Bail was set at $75,000 for Erofeeff. He is scheduled for an arraignment on the indict- ment early next month. Kris Kaino was appointed as his defense attorney. Officials: Deadly NYC fire lit by child playing with stove ing within minutes and block- ing the main escape route. Twelve people died, includ- ing girls ages 1, 2 and 7 and a boy whose age was not given. “We were told the boy had a history of playing with the burners and turning them on, and before the mother knew it, this fire had gotten a good hold of the kitchen,” Nigro said. Excluding the Sept. 11 attacks, it was the deadliest fire in the city since 87 peo- ple were killed during a social club fire in the same Bronx neighborhood in 1990. The blaze broke out on the first floor of a five-story By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK — New York City’s deadliest residential fire in decades was accidentally lit by a 3½-year-old boy playing with the burners on his moth- er’s stove, officials said Friday. The flames spread quickly through the kitchen, then roared through a door the boy’s mother had left open as she fled her first floor apartment with the boy and her other child, Fire Commissioner Dan- iel Nigro said. A stairwell acted like a chimney, carrying the flames through the entire build- building just before 7 p.m. and quickly tore through the roughly century-old structure near the Bronx Zoo. Many residents of the building, a mix of native New Yorkers and Latino and Afri- can immigrants, were able to flee via fire escapes. At least 20 people were clambering down the icy, metal escapes when firefighters arrived, Nigro said. But the flames moved so fast that many never made it out of their apartments. About 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling cold, just 15 degrees, to rescue a dozen people from the building. Firefighters respond to a deadly fire Thursday in the Bronx borough of New York. AP Photo/ Frank Franklin II Thierno Diallo, 59, a secu- rity guard originally from Con- akry, Guinea, who lives in a ground floor apartment said he was asleep when he heard banging on the door. It took him a moment to realize what was happening. “Only when I heard peo- ple screaming, ‘There’s a fire in the building!’” he said. “I heard somebody, ‘Oh! Fire! Fire! Fire!’” He ran outside in his bath- robe, jacket and sandals. Kenneth Kodua, 37, said he left his apartment to get food, leaving his roommate behind, and came back to find people fleeing in a panic. Hours later, he was still trying to find out whether his roommate had escaped. “I tried calling her. I tried calling. No answer,” he said, still clutching his bag of uneaten food. His phone was dead. Many questions remained in the immediate aftermath of the blaze, including how the fire spread so quickly in a brick building built after catastrophic fires at the turn of the 20th cen- tury ushered in an era of tougher enforcement of fire codes. FIVE-DAY FORECAST FOR ASTORIA TONIGHT SATURDAY SUNDAY 48 33 41 Periods of rain; breezy this evening Last Eugene 39/49 New Jan 8 First Jan 16 Source: Jim Todd, OMSI TOMORROW'S TIDES Astoria / Port Docks Time 4:13 a.m. 5:31 p.m. Low 2.8 ft. -0.4 ft. Ontario 30/43 Burns 28/41 W s c sn pc sn sf s s s sn c s s s pc s pc pc c pc c pc pc r s Hi 49 22 7 46 2 18 70 -4 80 15 10 67 75 40 80 40 60 27 29 28 17 50 59 48 37 Sat. Lo 29 10 -1 16 -10 3 39 -7 65 -3 -4 44 53 18 57 15 50 16 14 18 3 30 47 33 21 Lakeview 27/45 Ashland 42/52 Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice. Dec. 28, 2017 KEETH, Spurgeon Dallas, 92, of Hammond, died in Hammond. Ocean View Funeral & Crema- tion Service of Astoria is in charge of the arrangements. REGIONAL CITIES City Baker City Bend Brookings Eugene Ilwaco Klamath Falls Medford Newberg Newport North Bend Hi 39 53 54 55 52 46 51 54 53 57 Today Lo 30 28 48 39 43 28 40 39 42 44 W c c c r r c c r r r Hi 39 41 56 49 47 45 50 48 50 53 Sat. Lo W 14 c 21 c 46 c 31 c 36 c 24 c 36 c 33 c 38 c 39 c City Olympia Pendleton Portland Roseburg Salem Seaside Spokane Springfi eld Vancouver Yakima Hi 51 44 54 55 56 53 31 56 53 39 Today Lo 39 35 42 45 41 42 29 40 40 33 W r c r c r r i r r r Hi 47 44 49 50 50 48 34 49 47 47 Sat. Lo W 28 c 23 c 33 c 40 c 31 c 34 sh 18 c 31 c 32 c 24 pc Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. W pc sn pc c pc sf s pc pc sn pc pc s pc pc c r sn c sn c pc pc pc c Mildred (Fick) Scheffers, known as Millie near her daughter. She was known for walking to her friends, was born in Guthrie, Iowa, the all over town, most especially the Astoria Riv- daughter of Herman Fick and Mary (Gernantz) erwalk. She enjoyed spending time with her Fick. She was born into a large family with 10 daughter, watching the boats in the river, put- ting puzzles together, or visiting with siblings. friends at the Astoria Gateway senior Mildred married Claude Scheffers residence. in December 1938, and they soon She was preceded in death by her moved to Newport, Oregon. In New- port, both Millie and Claude worked husband, Claude, in 1996; nine of in the fishing industry. Claude was her 10 siblings; her son, William, in a commercial fisherman and Millie 1964; and her daughter, Mary Lou Marshall, in 2017. worked as a plant foreman in the local Survivors include her brother, cannery. They had two children, Wil- liam and Mary Lou. Duane Fick; three grandchildren; After many years in Newport, she six great-grandchildren; and six eventually moved to Astoria to be Mildred Scheffers great-great-grandchildren. DEATH Klamath Falls 28/45 TOMORROW'S NATIONAL WEATHER NATIONAL CITIES Today Lo 36 8 5 12 -4 12 38 -18 67 13 4 43 54 28 63 26 43 18 22 19 17 33 43 42 25 Baker 30/39 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2017 Tonight's Sky: Venus is lost in the sun's glare around the 12th of the month on its way towards superior conjunction (on the far side of the sun) on January 9. Hi 51 16 18 61 16 19 68 -14 80 20 33 67 81 42 81 40 56 24 42 27 31 49 59 51 35 La Grande 33/39 Roseburg 45/50 Brookings 47/57 Jan 24 John Day 32/37 Bend 28/41 Medford 40/50 UNDER THE SKY High 9.9 ft. 7.8 ft. Prineville 29/43 Lebanon 40/49 Astoria March 24, 1921 — Nov. 25, 2017 Sun and areas of high clouds Pendleton 35/44 Salem 41/50 Newport 42/50 Mildred Vergene Scheffers 48 35 Mostly cloudy The Dalles 38/47 Portland 42/49 Sunset tonight ........................... 4:38 p.m. Sunrise Saturday ........................ 7:58 a.m. Coos Bay Moonrise today .......................... 2:14 p.m. 43/53 Moonset today ............................ 3:38 a.m. City Atlanta Boston Chicago Denver Des Moines Detroit El Paso Fairbanks Honolulu Indianapolis Kansas City Las Vegas Los Angeles Memphis Miami Nashville New Orleans New York Oklahoma City Philadelphia St. Louis Salt Lake City San Francisco Seattle Washington, DC Mostly sunny Tillamook 41/49 SUN AND MOON Time 10:20 a.m. 11:49 p.m. 47 37 Shown is tomorrow's weather. Temperatures are tonight's lows and tomorrow's highs. ASTORIA 41/48 Precipitation Thursday .......................................... 1.08" Month to date ................................... 6.00" Normal month to date ....................... 8.97" Year to date .................................... 82.31" Normal year to date ........................ 66.34" Jan 1 TUESDAY REGIONAL WEATHER Astoria through Thursday. Temperatures High/low ....................................... 53°/42° Normal high/low ........................... 48°/37° Record high ............................ 60° in 1980 Record low ............................. 18° in 1978 Full 46 35 Mostly cloudy with a passing shower ALMANAC MONDAY ON THE RECORD Assault • Joel Merrill, 30, of Seaside, was arrested Wednesday by the Seaside Police Department on one count of fourth-degree assault after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. LOTTERIES OREGON Thursday’s Pick 4: 1 p.m.: 5-0-5-6 4 p.m.: 7-2-0-4 7 p.m.: 7-1-4-8 10 p.m.: 9-5-4-6 Thursday’s Lucky Lines: 01- 05-12-15-18-23-27-31 Estimated jackpot: $38,000 WASHINGTON Thursday’s Daily Game: The Daily Astorian Established July 1, 1873 (USPS 035-000) Published daily, except Saturday and Sunday, by EO Media Group, 949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103 Telephone 503- 325-3211, 800-781-3211 or Fax 503-325-6573. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Daily Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103-0210 www.dailyastorian.com MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper. SUBSCRIBER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF CIRCULATIONS, INC. 8-8-9 Thursday’s Keno: 02-03-04- 05-08-11-13-15-23-24-45-49- 50-51-56-59-62-67-74-77 Thursday’s Match 4: 03-07- 16-18 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Effective July 1, 2015 HOME DELIVERY MAIL EZpay (per month) ................$11.25 EZpay (per month) ............... $16.60 13 weeks in advance ........... $36.79 13 weeks in advance ........... $51.98 26 weeks in advance ........... $70.82 26 weeks in advance ......... $102.63 52 weeks in advance ......... $135.05 52 weeks in advance ......... $199.90 Circulation phone number: 503-325-3211 Periodicals postage paid at Astoria, OR ADVERTISING OWNERSHIP All advertising copy and illustrations prepared by The Daily Astorian become the property of The Daily Astorian and may not be reproduced for any use without explicit prior approval. COPYRIGHT © Entire contents © Copyright, 2017 by The Daily Astorian. Printed on recycled paper