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FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2016
140th Year, No. 160
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
MILTON-FREEWATER
Your Weekend
Woman killed in stabbing
•
•
•
Memorial Day ceremony
at Olney Cemetery
Ace Auto Club
Car Show in Echo
Thunder from Down
Under at Wildhorse
For times and places
see Coming Events, 5A
Milton-Freewater.
Maria
Villegas,
24,
of
Milton-Freewater, died at St.
Mary’s Hospital in Walla Walla
from her injuries.
Two children — a 2-year-old boy
and a 4-year-old girl — were also
stabbed and seriously injured. The
four-year-old was transferred via air
ambulance to Sacred Heart Hospital
in Spokane while the two-year-old
Two young children
seriously injured
By TIM TRAINOR
East Oregonian
A Milton-Freewater woman is
dead and two children are injured
after a stabbing Thursday in
was taken to St. Mary’s.
Oscar Villegas Garcia, 26, of
Milton-Freewater, suffered serious
cuts and wounds which are believed
to be self infl icted, according to a
release from Oregon State Police.
After being treated for his injuries
in Walla Walla, Villegas Garcia was
arrested by the Walla Walla Police
Department and is currently lodged
at the Walla Walla County Jail.
Villegas and Villegas Garcis
were married, according to county
records.
The stabbings took place near
362 NE 13th Avenue, Milton-Free-
water. Local police were dispatched
to the scene at about 10:20 a.m.
No further information was
available by press time Thursday.
Visit www.eastoregonian.com for
updates to this story.
Catch a movie
Twentieth Century Fox via AP
“X-Men: Apocalypse”
For showtime, Page 5A
Weekend Weather
Fri
Sat
Sun
66/43
71/48
77/49
Oregon
renews
wildfi re
insurance
policy
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon offi -
cials and forestland owners
have renewed the state’s
wildfi re insurance despite
failing to reach the policy’s
$50 million deductible last
year.
The price of the premium
declined by $300,000 to $3.45
million in 2016, according to
the Oregon Department of
Forestry. Underwriters gave
the discount because the state
did not need to use the policy
in 2015, said Sen. Alan Bates,
D-Ashland.
The $25 million policy
is underwritten by Lloyd’s,
a London insurance consor-
tium, and AXIS of Bermuda.
Federal and state agen-
cies spent $94.4 million
on wildfi re suppression
in 2015, according to the
See FIRE/12A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Pendleton Police Cpl. Ryan Lehnert clears the chamber of an assault rifl e after dispatching a deer that was hit by a motorist
Tuesday on Highway 30 east of Pendleton.
Police safer than ever, but the job continues to demand more
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Fleeing
suspects
shot
at police twice in Umatilla
County this year, and in both
cases offi cers returned fi re and
took them down.
Bryan Alberto Corona, 24,
now is serving 15 years in
prison after pleading guilty to
attempted aggravated murder
for shooting at state troopers in
January near Pendleton. Robert
Gage Sregzinski, 19 of St. John,
Washington, is in the Umatilla
County
Jail,
Pendleton,
awaiting trial on charges of
attempted murder and more for
a shootout with Milton-Free-
water police in April.
And while Corona and
Sregzinski are part of the
growing trend of gun violence
against police, in-the-line-of-
duty deaths continue to decline.
The U.S. does not have
a single national database
tracking on-duty police deaths,
nor is there a national database
tracking how many people
police kill in the line of duty.
The Offi cer Down Memo-
rial Page, Inc., a nonprofi t that
tracks on-duty deaths of law
enforcement offi cers, counts
38 deaths through the fi rst
fi ve months of 2016 with one
in Oregon, a 38 percent drop
through the same period a
See POLICE/12A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Pendleton Police Cpl. Ryan Lehnert checks in with dispatch after
assisting motorists with a fender bender Tuesday in Pendleton.
HERMISTON
Thousands of dollars
stolen in bank fraud case
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Hermiston
Police
Department has released
photos of a person of
interest in the bank account
fraud case that has affected
a number of Hermiston
residents in recent weeks.
The reports started
the week of May 8, as
customers of multiple
banks began noticing that
someone had withdrawn
hundreds of dollars from
their bank account, usually
from an ATM in the Port-
land area. Hermiston Police
Chief Jason Edmiston
said he didn’t have an
exact tally on hand, but he
thought the department had
taken close to 100 reports
by now, totaling thousands
of dollars of theft.
He said he knew there
were others who had
reported the fraud to their
bank but not the police
department.
The person in the
surveillance
photos
released
Thursday
is
believed to have affi xed a
“skimmer” to a local ATM.
See ATM/12A
CRP acres
on the decline
Meeting scheduled to
help local guide farmers
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Contributed photo
Hermiston Police Department post-
ed three photos to Facebook of a
person of interest in an investiga-
tion into use of a skimmer on ATM
machines. This one is the only one
where the male is not wearing sun-
glasses on his face.
The competition is getting fi erce for a
key farm program that pays growers to set
aside less productive land for conservation.
Enrollment in the Farm Service Agency’s
Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, is
down across Umatilla and Morrow counties,
which should come as no surprise given the
shrinking cap for farms nationwide. When
Congress passed the 2014 Farm Bill, it
allowed fewer acres in the CRP as a cost-
saving measure. By October, the FSA plans
to hit its lowered target of 24 million acres,
compared to 36.7 million at the program’s
See CRP/12A