NORTHWEST
Saturday, September 26, 2015
BRIEFLY
2 Idaho residents
killed in Eastern
Oregon crash
BURNS (AP) —
Oregon State Police say
two Idaho residents were
killed in a one-vehicle
rollover on Highway 20.
Police were called just
after 8 p.m. Thursday
on an initial report of a
motorist driving over
the speed limit without
headlights on Highway
20. They received another
call minutes later that the
vehicle had crashed 15
miles west of Burns.
Police say 42-year-old
Danielle Shea and
22-year-old Caleb E. Lynn
died in the crash after the
SUV they were riding in
rolled multiple times and
ejected them. Shea and
Lynn both lived in Eagle,
Idaho.
It’s unclear to police
who was driving the
vehicle. They believe
alcohol was a factor in the
crash.
Man found dead
near Mt. Hood
died of gunshot
PORTLAND (AP)
— Oregon’s medical
examiner says the missing
Gresham man found dead
at a the Trillium Lake Sno
Park east of Government
Camp died of a gunshot
wound to the chest.
The Oregonian
reports Dr. Karen Gunson
released the 68-year-old
Frank Wilson’s cause of
death on Friday after his
autopsy.
He was found
Thursday dead in a white
pickup truck parked at a
lot at the park on Mount
Hood.
The Clackamas County
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Wilson’s death is now
being investigated as a
homicide.
$755,000 verdict
against UO police
in retaliation case
PORTLAND, Ore.
(AP) — A federal jury
has awarded $755,000
to a former University
of Oregon public safety
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university’s police chief
and a top lieutenant
retaliated against him
for speaking out about
department wrongdoing.
The Oregonian
reports jurors awarded
the damages to James
Cleavenger on Friday.
Jurors found UO Police
Chief Carolyn McDermed
violated Cleavenger’s
First Amendment rights
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2012 and in 2014 when
she tried to prove he was
too untruthful to testify.
Cleavenger in 2013
sued the university and its
police department saying
KHZDVZURQJIXOO\¿UHG
for reporting problems,
including a vulgar list
FRPSLOHGE\RI¿FHUV7KH
list included people and
things the department
disliked, from Hillary
Clinton to campus
bicycles.
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said they’re disappointed
with the jury’s decision.
East Oregonian
Page 11A
Workgroup to evaluate crime lab procedures
Associated Press
SALEM — Oregon
Governor Kate Brown is
forming a workgroup to
review the practices and
procedures of the Oregon
State Police crime lab,
as the state investigates a
forensic analyst for allegedly
tampering with evidence.
The
workgroup,
announced
on
Friday,
will examine the recent
allegations of tampering and
identify any changes that
need to be made. It also will
help draft new legislation if
statutory changes are needed.
Last
week,
state
authorities said evidence
in hundreds of criminal
“The credibility of the criminal
justice system is critical to
Oregon’s citizens.”
— Kate Brown, Governor
cases was being reviewed
following accusations that
a forensic analyst stole pills
and other drugs and replaced
them with over-the-counter
pills.
The analyst, 35-year-old
Nika Larsen, worked in
OSP’s Bend lab since 2012
and at two other state labs
prior to that. She was placed
on leave earlier this month.
The state Department
of Justice took over the
criminal investigation from
OSP earlier this week.
Spokeswoman
Kristina
Edmunson said the state
police will continue to assist
with the probe.
“The credibility of the
criminal justice system is
critical to Oregon’s citizens,”
Brown said in a statement.
The
discovery
puts
current cases and convictions
in doubt and could cost
counties
thousands
to
retest and retry cases. State
police declined to publicly
release the number of
potentially affected cases,
citing the ongoing criminal
investigation.
Deschutes County District
Attorney John Hummel said
he must retest the evidence
in 502 cases dating back to
2012. In Klamath County,
District
Attorney
Rob
Patridge said he’s reviewing
328 cases dating as far back
as 2007. And in Polk County,
District Attorney Aaron
Felton is reviewing 35 cases.
Last week, state police
also said a second forensic
analyst at its crime lab
had been investigated.
Investigators found Jeff
Dovci, who worked at
OSP’s Central Point lab,
had overstated evidence
during a criminal trial in
2005. Dovci, who has since
retired, disputes the state’s
allegations and says his
interpretation of evidence is
a matter of opinion.
The state police operates
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6SULQJ¿HOG 3HQGOHWRQ DQG
Portland. Lt. Bill Fugate,
a state police spokesman,
said the forensic labs have
very strict policies and
procedures in place. But, he
said, the disclosures about
the analysts are prompting
further reviews.
Critics say duck boats too dangerous for city streets
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Even before
a duck boat crashed into a
charter bus in Seattle, killing
four international students,
calls had emerged for greater
oversight and even an outright
ban on the military-style vehi-
cles that allow tourists to see
cities by road and water.
Critics say the large
amphibious vehicles are
built for war, not for ferrying
tourists on narrow city streets.
“Duck boats are dangerous
on the land and on the water.
They shouldn’t be allowed to
be used,” Robert Mongeluzzi,
a Philadelphia attorney, said
Friday, renewing his call for a
moratorium on their operation
nationwide.
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families of victims in a deadly
2010 crash near Philadelphia.
A tugboat-guided barge
plowed into a duck boat
packed with tourists that had
stalled in the Delaware River,
sinking the boat and killing
two Hungarian students.
“They were created to
invade a country from the
water, not to carry tourists,”
VDLG0RQJHOX]]LZKRVH¿UP
now represents the family
of a woman killed in May
by an amphibious vehicle in
Philadelphia.
Some attorneys also ques-
tion the focus of the drivers.
In Seattle, tours are complete
with exuberant operators who
play loud music and quack
through speakers.
“This is a business model
that requires the driver to be
a driver, tour guide and enter-
tainer at the same time,” said
Steve Bulzomi, the attorney
for a motorcyclist who was
run over and dragged by
a duck boat that came up
behind him at a stoplight in
Seattle in 2011.
Brian Tracey, president of
Ride the Ducks Seattle, which
is independently owned and
operated, said Thursday that
it was too early to speculate
about what happened. “We
will get to the bottom” of the
crash, he said.
He said the captains are
&RDVW*XDUG FHUWL¿HG DQG
licensed as commercial
drivers, and are required to
take continuing education
once a month.
State
regulators
last
conducted a comprehensive
safety inspection of the Ride
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GULYHU
TXDOL¿FDWLRQV
employee drug and alcohol
testing, in 2012. They issued
said at a news conference
Friday. The NTSB has scru-
tinized the vehicles several
times when they have been in
accidents on water, he said.
The amphibious boats are
remnants from when the U.S.
Army deployed thousands
of amphibious landing craft
during World War II. Once
the war was over, some were
converted to sightseeing
vehicles in U.S. cities.
Thirteen people died in
1999 when an amphibious
boat sank to the bottom of
Lake Hamilton in Arkansas in
an accident the NTSB blamed
on inadequate maintenance.
Bulzomi, the lawyer for
the Seattle man struck by a
duck boat in 2011, said he
found two other recent cases
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Seattle Police investigators examine the front tire from a Ride the Ducks tour bus in which duck boats rear-
as it lies on the ground following a crash involving the tour bus and several other ended vehicles at stoplights.
vehicles, Thursday in Seattle.
In both cases, the drivers told
Bulzomi, the lawyer for vehicles for the time being. police they couldn’t see the
a satisfactory rating. The
company operates 17 amphib- the Seattle man struck by a He wasn’t sure whether the other vehicle because of the
ious vehicles and employs 35 duck boat in 2011, said the duck boats would be allowed height of the duck boats, he
drivers, according to the state latest incident should compel to continue in the city but said.
Thursday’s
crash
authorities to take action.
said the NTSB was interested
review.
“I would hope everybody in duck-boat safety because happened as North Seattle
Ferndale-based
Bellair
Charters was last inspected would take a serious look at such vehicles are operating in College students were touring
the city. The collision on the
by the Federal Motor Carrier whether this is a real good other cities.
The federal agency’s Aurora Bridge, which carries
Safety Administration in 2013 idea for the streets of Seattle,”
investigation in Seattle is the one of the city’s main north-
and received a satisfactory he said.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray ¿UVW WLPH LW LV ORRNLQJ LQWR south highways, left behind a
rating, state regulators said.
About 45 students and staff said Ride the Ducks Seattle a duck-boat crash on land, tangled mess of twisted metal
from North Seattle College has voluntarily sidelined its board member Earl Weener and shattered glass.
were traveling Thursday to
the city’s iconic Pike Place
Market and Safeco Field
for orientation events when
witnesses said the duck boat
suddenly swerved into their
oncoming charter bus.
The driver of the charter
bus reported that the duck
boat “careened” into them on
the bridge, Richard Johnson,
president of Bellair Charters,
said Friday.
Authorities say it’s too
soon to determine what
caused the crash that killed
four students from Austria,
China, Indonesia and Japan.
A National Transportation
Safety Board team arrived
Friday to lead an investigation
that typically takes a year, the
agency said.
Katie Moody, 30, from
Fremont, California, was
among 36 tourists aboard the
duck boat when it crashed.
From her hospital bed,
where she was recovering
from a broken collarbone, she
broke into tears Friday as she
recounted the accident.
“I just remember it felt like
we lost control, and I looked
up and saw the bus headed
toward us,” Moody said.
“Hearing the impact, that was
the scariest part.”
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