1. Bellevue resident Jim Downing came home after being gone for a week to find a dead buck in his bushes with an arrow nearby. Downing wasn’t the first to see the maimed mammal on his property near the edge of a bluff above Lake Washington. His neighbor’s landscaper had called Regional Animal Control Services of King County on Friday, Nov. 10 to report the dead buck, Animal Control confirmed.
As of Nov. 17, the carcass was still rotting in Downing’s bushes. He and his neighbor have tried to cover it up so it can properly decompose. Downing thinks the deer landed on his property after running from the shooter, whoever that may be.
“It’s an offensive, awful thing to have happen in one of our neighborhoods to one of our beautiful samples of wildlife of which there are not many left,” Bellevue resident Linda Tonn told the Bellevue Reporter.
Downing said he knows that not everyone enjoys the wildlife eating their landscaping, but he didn’t realize someone so close to downtown Bellevue would shoot and kill one of the deer.
“The shooter didn’t appear to intend to scare it off,” he said.
The City of Bellevue has a projectile ordinance that makes discharge of a weapon—be it a gun, slingshot, or bow and arrow—a misdemeanor on any Bellevue land other than private property. The penalty for a gross misdemeanor is up to $5,000 and a year in jail.
Bellevue Police Department spokesman Seth Tyler said they received a call about the deer but that no one has yet filed an official police report. If someone did report the shot deer, Tyler said it would be the first in Bellevue during his time with the department. Bellevue Reporter
2. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office has charged a 25-year-old Covington man with felony harassment for threatening violence against a Seattle church, according to charging documents. Seattle Police arrested Edeek Grigorovich Goga at his landscaping job in Snoqualmie on November 9 and detectives later confiscated an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle from his Covington home. He was placed in King County Jail, but was released on bail five days later, according to jail records.
On the evening of October 26, Edeek Grigorovich Goga reportedly sent threatening emails to two pastors at the Cross and Crown Church in Seattle’s University District, which he had previously attended. It was the first time Goga had contacted any of the church members since allegedly threatening to burn down the building a year and a half ago. The October emails to the pastors contained criticism of the church for recommending that Goga seek medical treatment: “Time to engage the artillery and kill you all,” they read, in part. Although the church hadn’t reported the previous arson threat, the pastors did alert SPD of the emails because they feared that Goga might act upon his threats.
About two weeks earlier, a photo of an assault rifle with a can of ammunition inside a car was posted to a Facebook page under Goga’s name. The photo caption read: “Going on an adventure.”
Then on November 7, two days after 26 people were killed in a church by a gunman in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Goga allegedly sent an email to Cross and Crown Pastor Adam Christiansen containing a reference to the rampage: “It saddens me that you guys weren’t the ones shot instead of the ones in Texas. I’m hoping someone finds it in their hurts (sic) to burn you all alive in your church building.”
Goga’s arraignment is scheduled for November 27 at 8:30 a.m., according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office. Snoqualmie Valley Record
3. A proposed material processing facility outside of Enumclaw has some local conservationists worried about how it may affect the Green River and other natural environments.
Ronald Shear, co-operator of Buckley Recycle Center (BRC), is starting the process to relocate his Auburn business to just south of the Bass Lake Complex and along Enumclaw-Franklin Road. Buckley Recycle Center recycles land-clearing debris like vegetation, stumps and logs, concrete, and asphalt to turn into various agricultural products, like hog fuel, mulch, and top soil.
However, Friends of Bass Lake, a local community group, has expressed concerns about the proposed recycle center, citing nearby sensitive environments and Shear’s business history.
“The location of this, next to this natural area, just is not right. It doesn’t make sense to us at all, for a variety of reasons,” said Bernie McKinney, a member of the group and president of the Green River Coalition, a nonprofit preservationist group.
Shear, who said he’s been working with the county for several years to find a properly-zoned area of land that also fulfills county code requirements for a material processing facility, believes his proposed recycling site will have minimal impact on the environment.
“BRC only processes yard debris, land clearing debris and clean wood waste. These materials do not produce pollutions,” Shear said in an email interview. “They are the same materials that are on the site now and in every forest in the state of Washington.” The Courier-Herald
4. A former office staff worker at Kent-Meridian High School was arrested and charged with child rape in connection with a sexual relationship she allegedly had with a 15-year-old male student. King County prosecutors charged Kristal Gamble, 33, with third-degree child rape and immoral communication with a minor.
Gamble initiated an inappropriate relationship with the victim that began with text messages and escalated into a sexual assault, according to charging papers. Facebook and text messages between Gamble and the student occurred from April through August of this year.
The boy’s parents found sexual photos and messages on their son’s cellphone, then contacted Kent Police in September, according to court documents. By then, Gamble was no longer working at Kent-Meridian, according to the Kent School District. Kent Reporter
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