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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 9, 2019)
REGION Friday, August 9, 2019 East Oregonian A3 Pursuit ends with self-inflicted gunshot wound Incident began with pursuit of armed suspect, according to radio traffic By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian PENDLETON — Ore- gon State Police is inves- tigating a shooting Thurs- day afternoon just outside Pendleton that resulted in a helicopter ambulance fly- ing off with one victim. Pendleton Police Chief Stuart Roberts said that when officers removed Ryan Newsome, 28, of Pendleton from the vehi- cle he was driving, he was gasping and had a pulse. Police and emergency med- ical technicians treated Newsome at the scene and he was taken by LifeFlight. Roberts said he did not know Newsome’s status. The incident initially Staff photo by Alex Castle Police and medics gather around a vehicle on the side of the road just past Exit 210 on Interstate 84 in Pendleton. began Thursday morn- ing when officers received reports of shots fired in the 300 block of South- east Dorion Avenue, Rob- erts said. When officers responded to the area, they found no evidence a shoot- ing had occurred. Police later located New- some’s vehicle and began a pursuit, but it was called off because the high speeds were deemed too danger- ous to the public. Law enforcement again found Newsome’s vehicle shortly before 4:30 p.m. Roberts said he was behind New- some on Southwest Nye Avenue when the vehicle went the wrong way at Exit 210. Roberts said police followed the suspect in the Hermiston police say shooter, victims beefed before gunfire Carsen Dain Rawe remains in the Umatilla County Jail after Monday shooting By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian HERMISTON — The Hermiston Police Depart- ment continues its inves- tigation of Monday’s shooting that left two Ken- newick teens with non-life threatening bullet wounds. The suspect, Carsen Dain Rawe, 19, of Uma- tilla, remains in the Uma- tilla County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail on four fel- ony counts. Police chief Jason Edmiston said the investigation found the three teens know each other and are at least “associates.” The shootings occurred at about 6:40 p.m. at West Cherry Avenue and North- west Second Street. Edmis- ton said Rawe and the vic- tims, one 15 and one 17, may have beefed on social media and earlier Mon- day had “some kind of exchange of words” in a confrontation at a car wash not far from the scene of the shooting. While none of the three lived in Hermiston, Edmis- ton said they all have fam- ily in the town. Rawe also grew up there and in 2018 graduated from Hermiston High School. Still, Edmiston said, Hermiston police have to deal with its share of crime from people who don’t live in the community. Hermis- ton police have solid rela- tions with Washington agencies, he said, particu- larly the Kennewick Police Department and Benton County Sheriff’s Office. Offenders don’t recog- nize state lines, he said, while they also know they are there. Some who make trouble on this side of the Washington border work to high-tail it back across to evade police. Edmiston added pin- ning down how much crime in town was due to out-of-towners is difficult to quantify. Plenty of vehi- cles in Hermiston sport Washington plates, for example, he said, but those vehicles belong to locals. Rawe so far faces two counts each of second-de- gree assault and unlaw- ful use of a weapon. State court records show Rawe has a hearing Tuesday in Umatilla County Circuit Court, Hermiston, where the district attorney’s office could present charges from a grand jury indictment. Trespassing up for Pendleton, burglaries, sex crimes down By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian PENDLETON — Tres- passing calls in Pendleton surged up 22% from 2018 to 2019, and reports of sex crimes dropped almost 29%. The stats come from Pendleton Chief of Police Stuart Roberts, who ran the numbers from July 2017-June 2018 and like- wise for the subsequent 12 months of the activities and crimes the depart- ment tracked the most. Some of the trespass- ing calls are due to Pend- leton’s growing homeless population, Roberts said, but the rise also reflects the broader use of the department’s trespass agreement program. Pendleton police implemented that pro- gram some years ago to allow businesses to give officers the authority to trespass people outside of normal business hours. The department has expanded the program to residential properties, and the result has been more trespasses. Code enforcement matters also trended up about 5%. The depart- ment had 1,521 code inci- dents in 2017-18 dealt and 1,592 from 2018-19. Rob- erts said code violations often are about quality of life issues, such as folks allowing dogs to bark or keeping junker cars on the street. Assaults of all kinds also increased over the two years, from 116 to 132. Roberts said most of those are misdemeanor assaults that include fist- icuffs in a bar to domes- tic violence. Determin- ing whether an assault is a fourth-degree misde- meanor or a third-degree felony, however, comes down to pain. Oregon law, Roberts explained, uses the vic- tim’s assessment of their pain as the measuring stick for the severity of the crime. The broken nose in a street fight that leaves one person cry- ing in pain could leave another with little dis- comfort. That excludes, of course, assaults that involve the use of weap- ons or prolonged beatings and result in disfiguring Staff photo by E.J. Harris, File Pendleton Police officer Cass Clark enters case notes into a mobile workstation in his patrol cruiser in Pendleton in 2018. or serious injuries. Pendleton police caught a break with declines in burglaries and sex crimes. Pendleton had 113 bur- glaries in the 2017-18 span, but from 2018-19 that dropped to 80. “To have a community of our size with 80 bur- glaries in a year is really amazing,” Roberts said, and could be the result of the department’s work to “stay on top of peo- ple who engage in those types of offenses.” And the reports of all sex crimes fell from 56 to 40. Roberts said that reverses the trend that still remains too high and often involves children. “We work a lot of those cases where a lot of kids are being victimized on an ongoing basis,” he said. While Pendleton’s numbers of sex crime reports declined, stud- ies from U.S. Department of Justice’s show most sex crime victims do not come forward. Milton-Freewater man guilty of killing flagger Leman Louis Bledsoe sentencing scheduled for Sept. 5 workers, a class A mis- d e m e a n o r. Primus said that was due to “a scriven- er’s error” in preparing the By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian PENDLETON — A jury convicted Leman Louis Bled- soe of Milton-Freewater of manslaughter and more for killing a highway construc- tion flagger in 2018. The trial began Monday at the Umatilla County Court- house, Pendleton. State court records show the jury deliv- ered the verdict on Thursday afternoon. The jury found the 77-year-old Bledsoe guilty of eight counts, including first-degree manslaughter, hit- and-run involving an injured person and driving under the influence of intoxicants. District Attorney Dan Pri- mus credited deputy pros- ecutor Daniel Pachico with his diligence in handling the case. And while the outcome favored the state, Primus said the verdict really is about the victims. Bledsoe the night of Aug. 15, 2018, drove drunk through a construction zone on High- way 11 near Weston, collided with a vehicle and then struck flagger Tyresa Monaghan, 49, of Kennewick. She died at the scene. Bledsoe’s defense team prevailed on one count. Pri- mus explained the court granted the defense a request to acquit on the charge of reck- less endangerment of highway Bledsoe charge. Obtaining guilty verdicts for the charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter, however, was significant, Pri- mus said, and now his team goes to work preparing its rec- ommendation for Bledsoe’s sentencing on Sept. 5. 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Police said Newsome’s vehicle eventually left the road- way where he was boxed in by police cars. Officers reported hearing a single gunshot from the suspect’s vehicle. State authorities shut down the interstate, as police determined New- some’s condition. Roberts said police broke the win- dow to the vehicle, found and secured a gun and began first aid. Umatilla County Dis- trict Attorney Dan Primus confirmed the shooting did not involve an officer. Newsome was recently released from prison after spending seven years in prison for sexually abusing and raping a 13-year-old girl. He was found guilty in 2011 of 11 felony sex crimes for having a sexual relationship when he was 19 with a then 13-year-old girl for three months in late 2009 and early 2010. 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