In brief: Released from hospital, felon faces assault charge

The suspect wounded in an officer-involved shooting on Barker Road on Jan. 30 was released from the hospital this week and made his first court appearance Wednesday.

Christopher R. Myers, 28, was ordered held on $750,000 bond on two charges of first-degree assault and a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm. Myers is a convicted felon and is prohibited from having a firearm.

The assault charges were filed because Myers allegedly fired a .22-caliber pistol twice as Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Thurman, K-9 Laslo and Liberty Lake police Officer Jeff Jones attempted to arrest Myers after he ran from a traffic stop.

The car Myers was riding in was pulled over at a gas station on Barker Road just north of Interstate 90 because the car had expired tabs, according to court documents.

The incident was captured on a body camera worn by Jones. It shows that Myers appeared to fall down before Thurman and Jones attempted to arrest him, court documents say. Little can be seen during the scuffle, but two small pops followed by a louder bang can be heard, according to court documents.

Thurman returned fire and shot Myers in the upper abdomen, court records say. Myers also received several dog bites on his legs.

Two .22-caliber cartridges and a .45-caliber cartridge were found at the scene.

Comments being sought on Deer Creek logging

The U.S. Forest Service is taking comments through Saturday on a plan to log 10 million board feet of timber as part of a forest restoration project north of Moyie Springs, Idaho.

The Deer Creek project was developed in cooperation with the local Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative. The project’s goals are to improve the forest’s resilience to disturbances such as wildfire, drought, insect and disease outbreaks. Part of that effort includes restoring stands of ponderosa, white pine and western larch where other tree species have grown in.

The Deer Creek project is one of several focusing on the ecological health of the lower Kootenai River watershed. Through the Forest Service’s collaborative landscape restoration program, about $1.4 million has been spent on projects in the watershed.

For more information on the Deer Creek project, visit www.fs.usda.gov/ipnf.

Homicide suspect’s extradition delayed

MOSCOW, Idaho – The extradition process for a man police say shot and killed three people and wounded another person in Moscow before being captured in Washington has been delayed.

An Eastern Washington state judge on Tuesday granted a motion to extend the time 29-year-old John Lee, of Moscow, will be held in the Whitman County Jail.

Whitman County Superior Court Judge David Frazier granted the motion after being told that Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s order to extradite Lee to Idaho hadn’t arrived. Officials said the letter was mailed last week.

Authorities said Lee shot his mother, landlord and an Arby’s restaurant manager at three separate locations in Moscow on Jan. 10 and wounded another man.

Lee faces three counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree attempted murder.

Seattle’s tunnel digger starts drilling again

SEATTLE – Bertha, Seattle’s troubled tunnel machine, is on the move after being stalled for more than a year.

The giant boring device that is trying to dig a new state Route 99 beneath the city started drilling late Tuesday and had moved 6 feet by Wednesday afternoon, Lynn Peterson, secretary of the Washington state Department of Transportation, told a legislative committee.

Bertha must travel another 14 feet through unreinforced concrete to reach an access pit so workers can remove its front section for repairs.

The machine started digging the tunnel – the key element in the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Project – in 2013, but only made it about 1,000 feet of its 2-mile trip.

The project is two years behind schedule.

Police: Texas driver had 25 pounds of pot

MERIDIAN, Idaho – Idaho State Police said a traffic stop near Nampa apparently derailed a Texas man’s business model.

State police said a 24-year-old Houston man had been stopped by a trooper on Monday night for a traffic infraction on Interstate 84 when the trooper detected a strong odor of marijuana from the Ford Escape. The trooper called for a drug detection K-9 that found the car interesting, and police found roughly 25 pounds of marijuana inside.

State police spokeswoman Teresa Baker said the driver told troopers he had moved to Washington to grow marijuana to take back to Texas and sell.

Police said Victor Toscano was arrested for investigation of felony trafficking in marijuana.