Court Digest

Washington
Man accused of threatening to kill Black man charged
PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) — A Sequim man is accused of threatening to kill a Black man while using racial slurs.

Samuel Ketchum, 39, was charged Monday with felony hate crime, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of attempting to elude a pursuing police vehicle, The Peninsula Daily News reported.

Ketchum was on a sand spit known as Ediz Hook when he repeatedly made death threats while using racial slurs before driving a pickup toward a Black man in a car at about 2:20 a.m. last Wednesday, Port Angeles police said.

The man was forced veer to avoid being rammed, police said.

Police used spike strips to stop the car Ketchum was driving and stopped a fleeing Ketchum with a stun gun, according to the probable cause statement.

Ketchum is also accused of setting fire to the entrance sign at Coast Guard Group Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles and destroyed a light that illuminates the sign.

Ketchum was being held Monday in the Clallam County jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

He repeatedly used the F-word and raised his middle finger at the court at his bail hearing Thursday. Superior Court Judge Brent Basden doubled the requested bail. Ketchum was calm during a brief court hearing Monday.

Basden ordered Ketchum to undergo a mental health evaluation. A competency hearing may be necessary before Ketchum’s arraignment, defense attorney Harry Gasnick said in court Monday.

Washington
Court overturns ruling against Value Village
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — A Washington state appeals court has overturned a 2019 ruling that found Bellevue-headquartered thrift chain TVI Inc., which operates Value Village and Savers, had misled customers by deceptively marketing itself as a charity.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, whose office sued TVI in 2017 over alleged violations of the state’s Consumer Protection Act, will appeal the decision, spokesperson Brionna Aho said in an email to the Seattle Times.

“We ... respectfully disagree with the appeals court,” Aho said. “We intend to hold Value Village accountable for misleading Washingtonians.”

Value Village cheered the reversal, in a statement calling Ferguson’s suit “costly” and “misguided.”

The appeals court’s ruling “was a resounding confirmation that what we’ve been doing has always been transparent and the AG’s case was not well-founded,” said Value Village general counsel Rich Medway.

Value Village operates 14 locations in Washington, though none in Seattle; its last Seattle storefront, in the Crown Hill neighborhood, closed in 2019.

Virginia
Man charged in overdose death of man in Tennessee
BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Virginia man has been arrested in an overdose death that occurred last year in Tennessee, officials said.

Anthony Lateze Robinson, 34, of Bristol, Virginia, was charged in a Sullivan County indictment with second-degree murder and two counts of sale and delivery of fentanyl, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a news release. He was arrested Tuesday in Bristol, where he is awaiting extradition, the TBI said.

The charges stem from the death on Aug. 9, 2020, of Christopher Robin Hurley, 39, who collapsed at his place of work in Sullivan County, the TBI said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the release said.

An autopsy revealed Hurley died from fentanyl toxicity, the release said. Authorities allege Robinson was responsible for providing fentanyl to Hurley.

The case was investigated by the TBI and the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office.

Nevada
Guilty verdicts in double-homicide on tribal lands
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A 43-year-old northern Nevada man was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder Tuesday in the 2018 shotgun slayings of two women at a house on a tribal reservation along the Nevada-Oregon line.

Stoney Prior of McDermitt and his two victims in the double murder were members of the Fort McDermitt Shoshone Paiute Tribe, U.S. prosecutors said.

At least one victim lived on the reservation at the home about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Winnemucca.

A six-day trial ended in U.S. District Court in Reno on Tuesday after the federal jury returned guilty verdicts on two counts of second-degree murder within Indian Country. Judge Larry Hicks scheduled Prior’s sentencing for Nov. 16.

Prior was taken into custody on unrelated tribal charges later the same day of the killings Jan. 31, 2018.

The federal murder charges were added the following week after the Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Allen said investigators for his office, the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs developed probable cause that Prior shot the women, ages 40 and 31.

Texas
Cop’s murder charge dropped over concern about ex-prosecutor
HOUSTON (AP) — Prosecutors dropped a murder count, for now, against a Houston police officer Tuesday who was charged for his role in a fraudulent 2019 drug raid that left two homeowners dead.

Officer Felipe Gallegos had been charged with murdering Dennis Tuttle during the January 2019 raid, the warrant for which prosecutors say now-former Officer Gerald Goines lied to obtain. Goines is still charged  with multiple counts, including murder, for the raid that left Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58, dead.

“The conduct of a former prosecutor, who handled the case, raised concerns about his judgment and resulted in his termination from the office,” said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg in a statement. “Out of duty and an abundance of caution, all evidence in the shooting will be re-reviewed by a different prosecutor... and re-presented to a grand jury.

Ogg did not identify the former prosecutor or elaborate on his conduct but said Gallegos would be allowed to testify before the grand jury.

“People’s lives hang in the balance of every decision that we make, and it is incumbent upon me as District Attorney to have this situation re-reviewed to ensure justice in this case, as in every case,” she said.

A message to Rusty Hardin, Gallegos’ attorney, was not immediately returned.

Goines and Gallegos were among a dozen current and former officers tied to the narcotics unit that conducted the drug raid who have been indicted in state and federal court in the wake of the shootings.

Prosecutors have alleged Goines lied to obtain the search warrant by claiming a confidential informant had bought heroin there. They allege that Goines later said there was no informant and he had bought the drugs himself. Police found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house, but no heroin.


California
AG to review 2009 fatal shooting at train station
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — California’s attorney general said Tuesday that his office will conduct its own review of a transit officer’s involvement in the shooting death of a 22-year-old Black man at a San Francisco Bay Area train station in 2009.

The decision by Rob Bonta comes after Nancy O’Malley, Alameda County’s district attorney, announced in January that her office would not file a murder charge against  former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Anthony Pirone in the death of Oscar Grant on News Year’s Day.

She said that while his conduct that night was unacceptable, he did not fire the gun that killed Grant.

Instead, Pirone hauled Grant out of a train car and pinned a knee to his neck and back in a manner similar to that used in the death of George Floyd last year in Minneapolis. The BART officer who shot Grant in the back while he was on the ground, Johannes Mehserle, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months.

Grant’s family has sought criminal charges against Pirone for years and petitioned Bonta’s office after O’Malley declined to go forward. The office pledged a “thorough and independent review” of the role played by Pirone.

“Transparency is critical to building and maintaining trust between law enforcement and the communities we serve,” Bonta said.

The district attorney’s office will share information with the Attorney General’s office.

“We join the attorney general in our commitment to open, honest and legally supported decision making in reviewing cases presented,” O’Malley said in a statement.

The shooting death, which sparked national calls for police reform, was depicted in the 2013 film “Fruitvale Station” directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan.


Arizona
84-year-old gets 21 years in prison for bank robbery
PHOENIX (AP) — An 84-year-old man who spent most of his adult life behind bars for robbing banks was sentenced Tuesday to more than 21 years in prison for carrying out an armed heist at an Arizona credit union.

Authorities say Robert Krebs carried out the January 2018 holdup in Tucson about seven months after he was released from prison as he was struggling to adjust to life on the outside. His attorney said Krebs wanted to go back to prison.

Krebs, who was in a wheelchair and had difficulty hearing during his sentencing, declined to answer a judge’s question about whether he accepted responsibility for his actions.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Zipps said Krebs doesn’t appear to be remorseful and has done damage to society and caused other people to be fearful. “This is the same type of conduct that he has been involved with his whole life,” Zipps said.

Kreb’s attorney, Erin Carrillo, said her client committed the Tucson robbery to return to prison because he didn’t feel like he fit into society after spending decades in prison. “To get out of the freedom business and go back to the penitentiary — that’s what he told me,” Carrillo said.

Krebs served more than 30 years for a 1981 bank robbery in Florida and was sentenced to three years in prison after a 1966 conviction in Chicago for embezzling $72,000 from a bank where he worked as a teller.

He also served an additional 17 years for theft and armed robbery convictions from Arizona dating to 1980.

In the Florida robbery, the branch manager and teller tripped a silent alarm and were later put in the bank vault. Krebs, who was arrested as he walked into the bank’s parking lot, was disguised in a wig, had cotton in his cheeks and had varnished his fingertips to leave no fingerprints, according to news accounts by The Orlando Sentinel.

Krebs told investigators he didn’t wear a disguise in the 2018 Tucson robbery because he wanted to get caught and return to prison, according to court records.

Documents say he also told authorities he committed the robbery because his monthly $800 Social Security payment wasn’t enough to live on and that the months before the robbery were the worst in his life.

Prosecutors said Krebs decided the credit union was an easy target because there was no glass separating customers and tellers and that he picked a lending institution near a mall, where it would be harder for police to find him.

Authorities said Krebs walked into a Pyramid Federal Credit Union branch on Tucson’s northern edge, put a handgun that turned out to a BB gun on the counter and demanded cash.

Authorities say he walked away with nearly $8,400 and later told investigators he almost got struck by a vehicle while crossing a roadway. He was arrested at a hotel.

Bank robbery experts say it’s unusual for older people to hold up lending institutions. Typically, bank robbers are in their 20s.

J.L. Hunter “Red” Rountree, who has been dubbed America’s oldest bank robber, was convicted of committing two robberies in his mid-80s and was 91 at the time of his last heist in the early 2000s. He robbed banks in Mississippi, Florida and Texas.

Rountree died in prison at age 92.

Louisiana
Park shooting: boys, 14 and 16, accused of attempted murder
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Police in southwest Louisiana say a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old are accused of attempted murder in a shooting at a city park.

The younger boy was arrested Tuesday on one count each of attempted first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery, Lake Charles police said in a news release.

Police say he and the older boy are both being held in the city’s juvenile detention center in connection with the shooting in Huber Park that sent two people to a hospital on July 27. The wounds were not life-threatening, police said.

The 16-year-old was arrested July 30. He is being held on the same charges as the younger boy, plus a second count of attempted murder.

Because they are juveniles, their names were not released.