Prim 2 News begins now thank you for joining us on creme 2 plus I'm Tim fam this is your creme 2 News weekend review join us as we take a closer look at some of the biggest stories in the Inland Northwest this past week Richard agir a former Pasco police officer now begins his prison sentence 25 years for the first-degree murder of Ruby Doss I'm not sure how much he understands that he was such an eraser of uh he changed the trajectory of my life and my sister's life in such a major way in Decem
ber a Spokane County Judge found Richard agir guilty of killing Doss after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the same case in 2021 Monday one by one the daughters of Ruby Doss address the void left by her murder this is not just a loss for me but a generational L for my future family members 1986 was the year of total devastation for me and my sisters the age of the crime is also a factor in AG's prison term the laws of 1986 set a strict standard for the mandatory minimum and maximum sentence
doss's family and prosecutors asked for the max 26 years this was a brutal crime it almost Rose to the point where it was excessive force new defense attorney Todd maybrown asked for the lowend saying the judge needed to take Air's years as a police officer into account the court needs to recognize that Mr air is going to be a particularly vulnerable inmate based on his law enforcement background while no one including agir on his attorney's advice spoke on his behalf there were several letters
supporting him with his 25-year sentence the judge said he did factor in Air's age at the time of the murder 21 but there was another number he felt carried weight in his decision 457 months and 4 days is about the timeline from when this act occurred and that's the amount of time that Miss Ruby Doss has been deceased removed as her daughters talked the Eraser of her AG's new defense attorney has already filed a notice of appeal Shannon mauy creme 2 News prosecutors today presented several piece
s of evidence from the night of Kendy Howard's death including body camera video from responding deputies and the 911 call made by the suspect Daniel Howard on using body camera video from the crime scene prosecutors appear to focus on Daniel Howard's Behavior what's going on Sir they have to do their job and point out what investigators thought was suspicious there appear to be deodorant marks on his shirt and why did that cat your attention because by that time it was almost midnight and most
people if you put your clothes on in the morning and get deodorant on them it's gone by midnight each Deputy who testified today all said they made several unusual observations including a Victoria's Secret bag pack pack with women's clothes small fragments of Glass on the bedroom floor and the dryer was running with bath towels and rugs the deputy coroner says she found the position of kend's body in the bathtub unusual and noted some inconsistencies it's a strange position for somebody's feet
to be in in a bathroom the blood on her face is not going in a proper direction did that appear OD to you based on your training and experience yes jurors also heard the 911 call Howard made to report his wife's [Applause] death but then prosecutors repeatedly asked responding deputies if they saw any tears at no point did I observe any tears throughout the night body camera video also showed a deputy trying to piece together a timeline of that night including when Howard called 911 I didn't thi
nk it was a gunshot I was downstairs going sound like something hit the floor or something I don't know so far this has been the most difficult day in court not only because of the evidence were sharing but the prosecutors also presented some gruesome photos of kend's body at the crime scene now Court will resume tomorrow morning in Cel Lane Amanda rley creme 2 News [Music] I'm here in the heart of the West Plains in what's now called the priority sampling area the EPA and Washington department
of ecology are now testing the drinking water for hundreds of people for possible P contamination 7 years ago P contamination was first identified near Fairchild Air Force Base similar groundwater contamination has been identified near the Spokane Airport just this week the EPA started free test ing at homes East and Northeast of both sites our lab will analyze those water samples and provide the results to Residents as soon as possible but certainly hopefully within a month the testing is free
around 300 wells in this priority area were identified as possibly impacted by these so-called forever chemicals which can create harmful health conditions and this by definition is quantitative it tells me levels and those levels uh tell me what can I advise you in terms of uh go forward for your care so far 144 people have signed up ecology director Laura Watson says the department will provide safe drinking water and filtration systems to impacted residents we have an emergency contract in pl
ace to immediately provide bottled water if people need it when they get their test results but the long-term Solutions are less definitive a model is being developed to track contamination in West Plains possibly Beyond this collection effort will really fill in a lot of those data gaps they'll feed into that model but one resident present Wednesday who didn't want to go on camera says he's upset about how long this is taking he's worried this problem will continue to spread while the state and
federal agencies investigate first you do what's called a remedial investigation and feasibility study to understand sort of the extent of the contamination and then you can come up with the remedies to um to clean up I would assume this year we will be getting into the data and starting to formulate you know plans for short longterm Solutions Shannon Mai Kem 2 News well it's quite a shocking story we want to warn our viewers that the details in this case are disturbing a couple on Airway Heigh
ts is accused of neglecting beating and abusing the mother's seven-year-old son I never once noticed a child living right across from me Ryan Harrington lived right across the hall from the couple accused of abusing a woman's child the walls are pretty thin I fig we would have heard them you know if there was a child we now we never seen anybody we are not identifying the couple to protect the identity of the child according to court documents in January child protective services received a repo
rt from a school counselor that one of their students had unexplained injuries to his face and had a significant amount of weight loss after winter break they definitely do their job and and reach out to the appropriate uh agencies for for that reason a CPS worker then took the 7-year-old boy to a local hospital where a Hospital employee contacted police documents say the child told the CPS worker that his mother's boyfriend tried to kill him and choke him to a point where he couldn't breathe we
take all complaints especially on children very seriously Lieutenant Jacob Keith with the AR Heights Police Department says this case was one of their priorities on March 6 Airway Heights police officers arrested the boy's mother and her boyfriend who police say is an active duty member at child Air Force Base it's a very extensive investigation that has a lot of moving parts and um that involves a lot of uh interviews with uh forensic investigators in court prosecutors told the judge this was
one of the worst abuse cases they have seen the state your honor short of a child death case has not seen um abuse this extreme this is the type of case that that doesn't usually end with a child being alive at the end the child is with his grandparents now old ultimately you know we were able to to help get that that child in a safe place and where he's going to be taken care of the couple faces first-degree assault of a child and first-degree unlawful imprisonment among other charges they are
each being held on $250,000 bond in a case like that you think that you might hear something going on but we never heard anything so yeah it it was pretty uh mindboggling Child Protective Services told creme 2 its organization focuses on the safety of the child if you know or hear of any child suffering abuse CPS encourages you to call their hotline at 800-557-1900 shows Spokane County exceeds State averages for overdoses and deaths and now the public is pushing city council for more action a pu
blic safety and health briefing Monday painted a sobering picture a 2,000% increase between 2019 and 2022 in Spokane County's overdose deaths for synthetic opioids I will certainly expect to see a even greater when we see the 2023 data now Dr Bob Lutz with Washington's Department of Health has new calculations using some of the most recent statistics from Spokan County this number will really amaze the audience from 2017 where we really had essentially no known nooses from fentel to 20 23 prelim
inary data we have a 5800 yes that's 58% increase in the number of people who have overdosed from fentanyl The Staggering rise in overdoses and deaths has increased calls for Spokan city leaders to take action we could declare an emergency we don't have the resources to really double down with additional funding K news also spoke with Ain Hut communications director for mayor Lisa Brown's office she says the city could declare a Public Health crisis but it would largely be to raise awareness and
wouldn't open up any additional tools to combat the crisis though Dr Lutz says awareness and reducing stigma could go a long way around education around support ing people who have substance use issues and for treatment HUD says the city is looking at taking some action though while discussions on a crisis declaration continue the city has asked the regional health department to coordinate a more centralized overdose dashboard funds from opioid settlements may also be used to staff up behaviora
l response units the city is also expecting to hear from the state legislator later this week on a $1 million request to expand Street medic teams Shannon mauy km 2 new Tuesday night Spokan Valley city council meeting saw a decent crowd as city manager John homman read his statement about the investigation being done into council member Al Merkel about his interactions with City staff I can share the complaints pertain to allegations of of offensive hostile or unwelcome interactions between coun
cil member Merkel and city employees here at City Hall kemt spoke with the councilman before the meeting to ask what he knew about the investigation he told us he had no idea what the complaints could be about no staff member has ever come to me and reported anything to me um besides the first email that I received that there were quote unquote complaints Merkel shared with Creme 2 emails between him and city manager homman from last week with homman asking if the council member would be a avail
able to talk about alleged incidents with City staff Markle agreed writing to Homan if he could find out specifics such as details dates and names the city manager emailed back saying we are not in a position to provide specifics at this time and would be best if Merkel only visited city hall for Council meetings Merkel told kemu he didn't really read into that email until the next day when homman emailed to thank him for agreeing to focus his City Hall visits to Tuesday evenings to clarify at n
o time was council member Merkel banned from City Hall he was simply asked to voluntarily agree to limit his time in the building to protect all involved including himself while the investigation is being carried out Merkel says he's had few interactions with City staff except during Council meetings before I even took office we had an orientation in December and during that orientation he emphasized that I should not be initiating any conversations with staff EX except through him and I have as
far as I know listened to that request uh to the letter i attended the virtual town hall meeting tonight where attorneys for Singleton triers spoke with victims of the great fire the law firm has filed a lawsuit against Inland Power and Light the utility DNR blames for causing the fire I have to drive through that area every day to work and from work and it's just you know a constant reminder of what happened Joe David Feliz and his wife Destiny lost her home in the great fire on a August 18th
now more than 6 months later most of the construction on their new home is complete people they're is in different stages and it's exciting when you you see a a lot get cleaned up and then their Foundation you get excited for them they were one of more than two dozen families that joined a town hall with attorneys from Singleton shriber a law firm that specializes in Wildfire litigation The Firm got involved with the gryf fire back in September we have experts that when we suspect that there's b
een a utility caused Wildfire we have our experts take a look at it and and see what they can confirm John lemon and Steve Hill are the primary attorneys handling the litigation they say since a DNR report came out that blamed Inland Power and Light for causing the gray fire it's helped them move forward in their process it's evidence or it provides information about how to get evidence about who the potential Witnesses are and so it's very helpful Hill and lemon say about 60 victims of the gra
Fire have already made claims through litigation they expect to add another thir people in the next month we're here to try to answer things to the try to help our clients to the best of our ability that's the purpose of the of the Town Hall the Feliz family created their own claim with the law firm three weeks ago Joe David and Destiny Hope to get more than just a settlement there's consequences for Inland Po's responsibility of not following through and they need to need to accountable for tha
t hill and lemon say they're still in their Discovery process of litigation and it'll take time we counsil with them that it's a laborious process but but you know we get there and have faith it's that faith that Destiny's holding on to as we're all progressing and and getting through it we kind of encourage each other and support each other Singleton shriber say a trial date is scheduled for September 8th of 2025 the Singleton shriber attorneys tell me they are not in litigation with the Oregon
Road fire that is because the Oregon Road fire was not caused by utility company in the studio Nathan h crem 2 News yeah well starting on May 1st you'll probably see some Quarterlane police officers patrolling this area and they're going to be on bikes they're going going to be on bike Patrol and actually those bikes that they'll be on will be electronic bikes according to our news Partners at the C Lane press police received a Justice assistance grant to purchase six ebikes and related equipme
nt so police will have at least four daily patrols and listen to this the ebikes are considered weather resistant so they can roam through the snow and can be used all year round on top of that they are primarily used by Pedal Power but have the ability to go up to 30 m per hour the department will be the first in the country to use federal dollars for an ebike program and police are hoping the additional presence will provide stronger engagement in the community while also deterring criminal ac
tivity so again that's expected to start on May 1st and police also say they'll still have officers on foot patrol as well but for now reporting in cudney County Brandon T Jones kerm 2 [Applause] News yeah I'm just like I'm going to you know better be safe than sorry Kaylin's freshman is getting an unexpected long weekend after she got an email from Rogers High School a suspected bed bug was discovered in a classroom she called Thursday morning yeah yeah they confirmed that it was bed bugs when
we we called the school Communications employees with Spokane Public Schools tell kemto news it's still undetermined if the insect found was a bed bug and say this is quote definitely not an outbreak or infestation though the district is starting deep cleaning and investigating further out of an abundance of caution so I'm just like so scared like K being cautious too I just don't want them coming home with my child they get lots of binders at school PID ERS and all that and bed bugs can go in e
very you know and once you have one you have a million her student won't be back in a classroom until she hears more from the school about what bug was in the classroom with them and I can't afford to you know throw out all my stuff because of a bed pug problem one thing that I think most people agree on it's the dislike of moving their clock backward and forward for decades now we've been making the switch moving our clocks ahead 1 hour in the spring and then back an hour in the fall the time c
hange comes despite Washington State lawmakers voting to make Daylight Saving Time permanent so why are we still doing it let's verify our sources are the Washington State Legislature and the National Conference of state legislators in 2019 Washington Governor Jay Insley signed a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent in the state however the law noted that under federal law quote states are not permitted to observe Daylight Saving Time year round that's because of the uniform time Act pass
ed back in 1966 the ACT gives States the ability to opt out of daylight saving time but no option to stay on it without Congressional approval so we've waited and waited and waited and people are getting tired of the switch with no action from Congress Washington State Senator Mike padon of Spokane Valley introduced a bill that would ditch the switch but with a Twist so in l of not adopting the daylight time we are going to permanent standard paton's bill would have kept the state on Standard ti
me all year round at least until Congress cleared the path for permanent daylight saving time so people can have some certainty in the time of the year I mean there have been studies that have uh connected several health problems with switching back and forth between standard and daylight time at a hearing in January it was clear not all Washington and lawmakers were on board with the idea in standard time during the summer our Sunset would be 8:11 p.m. in daylight time right now in summer is 9:
11 p.m. so we lose that hour I'd probably have a lot more support if it was Daylight being in agriculture uh having those longer days uh during the time that we do our Harvest and everything we don't always get started early in the mornings and it helps to have those longer daylight hours uh we want to get rid of that switch and maybe that'll encourage and if these other states do something maybe that'll courage Congress I don't know the bill failed to make it out of the short session and so on
Sunday it'll be time once again to make the switch moving your clocks ahead one hour thank you for joining us on creme 2 plus for a look at some of the biggest news stories of the past week for the most current news throughout the weekend you can watch our latest newscast here on creme 2 plus just look for it at the bottom of the navigation menu I'm Tim fam thanks for [Music] watching
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