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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (April 4, 2012)
WWW . THESKANNER . COM A PRIL 4, 2012 S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON V OLUME XXXIV, N O . 13 25 CENTS For The Skanner news alerts Text "NEWS" to 503-715-0890 or scan this QR code C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW Baby Unemployment Nation Shoots Self In third such case, parents hit with criminal charges See LAWYER on page 3 See BABY on page 3 PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Conway said prosecutors have little obligation to turn over evi- dence or help coordinate inter- views. “This is just going to be an uphill battle,” he said. Maj. Chris Ophardt, an Army spokesman, said in a statement that the prosecution will provide Bales’ defense with evidence in accordance with court martial and military rules of evidence. Within these guidelines, Ophardt said, “the prosecution is and has been communicating TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Saying the death of a 3-year-old boy who shot himself in the head with a gun found under a car seat was the result of “criminal negligence,” a Washington state prosecutor has charged the child’s mother and her boyfriend with manslaughter. Authorities say Jahnisha McIntosh, 23, left her son unrestrained in a car after she placed a pistol under the driver’s seat while she went to get food during a stop for gas. Her boyfriend, 22-year-old Eric Vita, who has a concealed weapons permit, had removed his gun from his waistband to avoid alarming the clerk and placed it under the passenger seat, Pierce County Prosecu- tor Mark Lindquist said. “Nothing is sadder than the death of a child, and when the death is the result of criminal negligence, there needs to be accountability,” Lindquist said Wednesday. “Guns are inherently dangerous, and the law, as well as common sense, requires that guns be handled responsibly, especially around children.” McIntosh and Vita made their initial appearance on the second-degree manslaughter charges Wednesday afternoon in Pierce County Superior Court. They both pleaded not guilty. Julio Segura-McIntosh’s death on March 14 was the third child shooting in Western Washington within three weeks. On Feb. 22, an 8-year-old girl was critically wounded by a gun that went off in a classmate’s back- pack in a Bremerton school. On March 10, the 7-year-old daughter of a Marysville police officer was killed when her brother found a gun in the family car. In Julio’s case, Vita and McIntosh had stopped for gas in Tacoma. Julio had unbuckled himself and climbed into the front seat to ask his mother for candy. Authorities say McIntosh moved the gun from under the passenger seat to under the driver’s seat so Julio could not reach it. Then, she went inside the convenience store for food, leaving Julio unrestrained, Leon Garnett, the program director with the Central Area Motivational Program talks about the programs CAMP offers to the unemployed, at the Unemployed Nation Hearings Saturday March 31 in the Bertha Knight Landes room at City Hall. The event gave workers an opportunity to talk about how their lives have been affected by the recession. Afghan Suspect’s Attorney Investigates Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ defense says U.S. military is hiding evidence By Chris Grygiel and Mike Baker The Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — The attor- ney for the U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians says the government is “hiding evidence” and not giving his defense team the cooperation they were promised. The Army says officials have been following procedures and communicating with Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ defense team. The disagreement over access to the evidence and help in get- ting interviews with witnesses in Afghanistan highlights the differences between military and civilian proceedings. For one, military legal proce- dures don’t require prosecutors to turn over certain information to the defense until several weeks before a preliminary hearing. And at this point, Bales’ attorney, John Henry Browne, said there is no judge to complain to, as he would in a civilian trial. “It’s outrageous. What they INDEX News .....................2,3,8 Calendar ....................2 Opinion ....................4,5 Bids/Classifieds.........6-7 are basically doing is hiding evi- dence,” said Browne, adding that he now questions the strength of the military evidence since prosecutors are not shar- ing it. “We’ll see if they can prove their case,” he said. Dan Conway, a military attor- ney who represented one of four Joint Base Lewis-McChord sol- diers convicted in the deliberate killings of three Afghan civil- ians in 2010, said the govern- ment doesn’t appear to be doing anything wrong at this point. NFL Concussion Lawsuits Growing Washington football veterans also diagnosed with brain damage By Howard Fendrich AP Pro Football Writer Mark Rypien is a Super Bowl MVP and champion, a former quarterback for the Washington Redskins and other teams who reached football’s pinnacle and now won- ders at what cost. His memory failing him, the 49-year-old Rypien tape-records significant conversa- tions with his girlfriend, he explains, “So we can go back ... when I vehemently say, `I did not say that.’” He suffers from depression, which Rypien finds particularly worrisome when he thinks about his cousin Rick, an NHL enforcer who faced that condition for years before committing suicide at age 27 in August. Rypien wants to know what hap- pened to the “fairly mellow individual” he once was, before he became more impulsive and irritable. Concerns such as those are why Rypien put his name alongside those of several hun- dred - and, lawyers involved say, soon per- haps more than 1,000 - ex-players who are suing the NFL in federal court in Philadel- phia. They say the league didn’t do enough to inform players about the dangers of head See BRAIN on page 3
