The City of Normandy Park announced this week that the speed limit along First Ave South between South 164th and South 174th Streets has been reduced from 45 mph to 35 mph.

According to the Normandy Park Police Department, in the past four years, they have responded to 148 accidents on this stretch of First Ave South, involving 62 injuries. The majority of those accidents (51) have been rear-end collisions followed by right angle collisions (34), which typically involve intersection and driveway turns.

So all you drivers who are always seemingly in a rush out there…slow down, else risk a ticket.

Here’s the official text from the cityfolk:

1st Avenue South Speed Limit

The adoption of Ord. No. 848 by the City Council at the January 12th meeting will reduce the speed limit on 1st Avenue South, between S 164th St and S 174th Street, from 45 mph to 35 mph.

The speed limit on 1st Avenue South/SR 509, between S 174th Street to the Des Moines city limits, is controlled by Washington State Department of Transportation. A request to reduce the speed limit from 45 mph to 35 mph on the section of 1st Avenue South controlled by WSDOT will be submitted in the near future.

In the past four years, the Normandy Park Police Department has responded to 148 accidents on 1st Avenue South, involving 62 injuries. The majority of accidents (51) have been rear end collisions followed by right angle collisions (34), which typically involve intersection and driveway turns.

Normandy Park City Hall was evacuated and closed for most of Thursday, Jan. 28th, after a bomb threat was left on a city official’s voicemail Wednesday night claiming to blow up the building at “around Noon.”

According to a Normandy Park Police spokeswoman, the building went into “lockdown” mode around 10am this morning, when city hall was shut down and all employees were evacuated and sent home for the day.

After the evacuation, Port of Seattle Police brought in their bomb squad, which includes bomb-sniffing dogs, and checked the building for around an hour. Officers from the Des Moines Police Department also helped out.

No bomb was found.

However, city hall was shut down for the day, and it will not re-open until tomorrow.

As for the bomb threat itself, police say the caller ID was traced to Minnesota, and they’re considering it a hoax.

by Mark Neuman

We sat down recently for a talk with King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.

Dan joked while recollecting his days playing both offense and defense for Highline High School’s football team in the late 1970’s.

“We were a small team, but we were slow.”

The Pirates won, perhaps, four games during the three years Dan was there.

“But really, I have to say that learning to lose and learning to do so with some grace and class is part of learning to live,” he said. “I think I may have learned more by being on a losing team than I would have being on a state championship team.”

Dan went on to the University of Washington for his BA in Political Science and a law degree.

“My favorite professor in law school was the one that scared me the most. His name was Arval Morris, a constitutional law professor. He was an intellectual giant,” Dan said. “I was in awe of him because of his ability to analyze and his depth of knowledge.

“He taught us so much about constitutional law and the rules of criminal law and how the government interacts with its citizens. The contract between government and citizens is the Constitution.

“It’s a fascinating area because we continue to define what we mean by that contract. The Constitution is a living, breathing document in my office because we look at Fourth and Fifth and Sixth Amendment issues every day as we analyze cases.

“I love the law, and I see those years in law school as formative years,” Dan added. “The prosecutor has a significant role in moving law in new directions. A prosecutor can actually direct traffic.”

JUVENILES WITH GUNS
One area where Dan is directing traffic deals with attempting to separate kids from gang activity before they fire a weapon in commission of a crime.

“You would think that when a 16 or 17 year-old youth is caught with a handgun that we would bring to bear all of our resources because this is a giant red flag. ‘We better pay attention to this kid,’” Dan said. “But the truth is that current state law builds in a tolerance where literally nothing happens until (there are) five felony convictions.

“And only then the kid, by law, would go to a Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facility, let’s say Echo Glen, for a period of time.

“So the message that we send to a kid is that gun possession is not a big deal.”

Dan Satterberg and The State Prosecutors Association want to change that. They are pressing the Washington State Legislature to make changes to the law during the upcoming legislative session such that a juvenile found in illegal possession of a handgun will “get an immediate response from the system. We don’t wait. The kid gets removed from the community and put into Echo Glen,” he said.

“And while there the juvenile can get help with tried and true programs such as Moral Recognition Therapy which helps him understand his options and the potential consequences of his future actions.”

CANINE COMPANION PROGRAM
Dan spoke about the relatively new Canine Companion Program which involves having a dog in the courthouse to help calm the nerves of those going through the legal process.

“We have a dog in our office. Her name is Ellie, a six year-old Golden Lab. Ellie’s full time job is to come in and lay on the floor and look up at you with doe eyes. She puts kids at ease. We use her with our elder abuse cases as well.

“Once we got Ellie on board we realized this is an essential part of what we need to do to put witnesses and victims at ease. We have a lot of children who come into our office to talk about sexual abuse that happened to them or some scary moment, and when they see the dog all of a sudden everything’s okay. And they want to come back to see Ellie again.

“We even bring the dog up to drug court. Ellie will put her head in the lap of someone who may be heading to prison because they screwed up.

“Ellie doesn’t discriminate. Ellie loves everybody.”

NORM MALENG AND THE JOB OF PROSECUTOR
The duties of King County Prosecutor involve overseeing a staff of about 500, including 220 attorneys. The Office of the Prosecutor has an annual budget of $56 million.

Those duties fell on Dan’s shoulders quite unexpectedly in the spring of 2007 when long time Prosecutor Norm Maleng died suddenly at the age of 68.

Dan was appointed by the King County Council to serve as prosecutor and subsequently won election to serve the remainder of the full term.

“It was a great honor for me to work with Norm Maleng for 17 years. I was just 29-years old when he selected me to be his chief of staff.

“What I learned from Norm was not so much about the law as about life in general. I started with him shortly after he’d lost his daughter in a tragic sledding accident. So he was in many stages of grief and I learned an awful lot about dealing with people in grief.

“One of the things that he taught me was that every one of the thousands of felony cases we deal with involves a human tragedy, a story of someone’s hurt or loss or suffering.

“Norm would always start out a meeting with a homicide victim’s family by reaching out and saying how sorry he was that this happened to their family. He would say ‘Tell me about your son or daughter.’ To make that case and that person alive. The case wasn’t just a file full of papers.

“I try to keep that practice alive. What makes this job so meaningful is the ability to reach out and talk to victims and their families.”

THE FAMILY AND THE BAND
Dan and his wife, Linda, have two children and live in Normandy Park.

When he finds the time, Dan loves rocking out with his pals in their band The Approximations. Here’s info from their website:

Organized by bass player and singer Dan Satterberg (aka the King County Prosecutor), the band includes harmonica player and vocalist Bill Mattocks leader of the Bill Mattocks Band, keyboardist and vocalist Michael Hepburn from the nationally known 80’s R&B group Pleasure; drummer and vocalist Rusty Fallis, guitarist Tom Pratt, guitarist and vocalist John Rankin, percussionist and drummer Fred Staples, vocalists Linda Norman and Michelle Purnell-Hepburn. Tom, Rusty, Dan and John also play and record original songs as the Treehouse Dreamers. With such a large band and wide array of musical backgrounds, the Approximations are likely to play songs by Smokey Robinson, the Beatles, AC/DC, Savoy Brown, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Fleetwood Mac and Kings of Leon all in the same set.

The Approximations have played their full, multi-faceted, danceable rock sets in Seattle venues such as the Showbox, Showbox Sodo, Mountaineers Club, and the Highway 99 Blues Club entertaining for private functions, special occasions, and benefits for the Domestic Violence Coalition, and the American Cancer society among others.

The band’s website is here, and you can view videos of the band in action here.

You can catch The Approximations at Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub (located at 435 SW 152nd Street in Burien), this Friday night, Sept. 18th:

According to a press release, the Normandy Park Police Department will be taking over Marvista Elementary School for some serious police training between Wed., July 1st and Fri., July 3rd, from 9am to 9pm.

The school grounds will be off limits to all non-police personnel, and the training will be scenario-based for SWAT and Patrol. For the safety of its citizens, Normandy Park Police along with Kassel Construction are temporarily closing the school grounds.

This training is critical for the maintenance of basic and advanced skills. The Coalition of Small Police Agencies (CSPA) has a Special Operations Team (SOT). The team is staffed by members of the coalition.

The City of Normandy Park provides three officers to the SOT. The SOT has approximately 20 team members. The SOT assists CSPA agencies and other outside agencies needing assistance with search warrant service or special event enforcement. During the SOT training on July 1st, the team will be training in Simunitions, Explosive Breaching, Noise Flash Diversionary Devices, CS Gas, Pepperball and smoke familiarization. Team members will also be breaking windows and forcibly opening exterior and interior doors. Residents can expect to hear loud noises similar to that of large fireworks. Residents may also see a number of outside agency police vehicles, to include an armored transport vehicle and possibly a mobile command center. The training will begin at 11:00 A.M. and conclude at 7:00 P.M.

On July 2nd and July 3rd, members of the Normandy Park Police Department and several CSPA agencies will be conducting Active Shooter training inside the soon to be demolished Marvista Elementary. This training will begin at 9:00 A.M. and conclude at 6:00 P.M. This training will utilize Simunitions only.
Simunition rounds are similar to paintballs, but they are fired from realistic type weapons. Safety officers, not participating in the training will be ensuring only simunition rounds are used in the training.

As a result of cooperation from Highline School District and Kassel Construction, the Normandy Park Police, CSPA and the SOT have been given the outstanding opportunity to train in a very realistic environment.

Marvista Elementary is located at 19800 Marine View Drive SW in Normandy Park.

If you have concerns that what you are seeing is not associated with the SOT training, please feel free to call the Normandy Park Police Department at (206) 248-7600.

From the “it could only happen here” police files comes this recent tale of a dumb criminal who robbed an area house, and in his haste to escape, ran right into a police training exercise:

On Thursday, March 26th at about 2:40pm the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission Basic Law Enforcement Academy received an unusual visitor on campus: a felon fleeing the Normandy Park police after breaking into a home.

Unfortunately for the suspect, the academy staff and senior class were participating in what are known as “Patrol Beat Mock Scenes”, a daylong exercise in which recruits patrol the campus facility in marked academy police cars responding to simulated calls for service. The man was later caught by academy staff in the neighborhood bordering the campus after interrupting a training scene on campus. He had committed two residential burglaries, escaping the second one by diving out of a closed window injuring his hand.

Recruits and an instructor working the simulated crime scene were contacted by an on-duty officer from the Normandy Park Police Department who came to the academy campus searching for the felon last seen on foot in the area. The officer stopped to tell them about the situation and asked them to call 911 if they saw the suspect. The instructor, a Kirkland Police Corporal, used his radio to alert other members of the staff who were involved in training scenarios around the facility.

A few minutes later, the suspect, a 21-year old man, walked out of a wooded area of the campus past a group of recruits who reported his presence. The suspect fled back into the woods pursued by a Des Moines Police Officer who tailed him until he crossed 192nd Ave South where he was seen dumping stolen property by a Washington State Patrol Corporal. A Seattle Police Officer and Renton Police Officer recovered the stolen property which included a handgun. The suspect jumped several fences across backyards in an attempt to escape. A short time later the man was taken into custody by a Des Moines Police Officer, U.S. Forest Service Officer and Renton Police Officer.

SOURCE:

• City of Normandy Park e-Newsletter (PDF)

From our sister site The B-Town Blog comes this news:

Thursday morning (2/12/09) around 10:45am, the Burien Key Bank located at 655 SW 152nd was robbed by this man, described as a white male, late 20s, medium height, slim build, brown hair, with a goatee:

According to police, he entered the bank, gave a teller a note, got his loot and took off.

No weapons were displayed and there were no injuries.

If this bad guy looks familiar, you are asked to contact the Seattle FBI immediately at (206) 622-0460 (you can also call 911).

According to The Seattle Times, a federal jury awarded $60,000 to a 53-year-old accountant who got tasered by our own Normandy Park police after he tried to talk to the police chief about being treated “rudely.”

The victim, an accountant named Kevin Bonner, was tasered by Normandy Park Detective John Lievero, who, according to the decision, used “excessive force” as well as conduct considered “malicious, oppressive, or in reckless disregard” of his civil rights at the Normandy Park police station in April 2005.

This begs the question, and we don’t mean to make fun of this situation as we know how dangerous tasers are (feel free to respond in Comments below or email us):

Would you willingly be tasered if the reward was $60K?

The full story is here.

The Seattle Times has an interesting article today about a couple in neighboring Des Moines who’ve had their home-based swingers sex parties shut down by the city.

Apparently neighbors complained, cops “investigated” (undercover perhaps? or should we say undercovers…) then the city threatened them with a $513 per day fine for “running a business from their home.”

They called their ongoing sex parties the “Hardwood Cabin” and promoted it online at HardWoodCabin.com, which of course is no longer active (we know you’re going to check it but trust us, there’s nothing there now but an “Account suspended” notice but we’ll wait while you copy and paste the URL in…).

Okay, done checking it now?

On the bright side – at least we now know what the source of those strange sounds were that were emanating from south of NP.

Full story here.

The tragic apartment fire that killed three in Burien early Sunday has been determined as being arson, and a $10,000 reward has been set for information leading to an arrest.

Lots of generous Readers have been asking how they can help the victims, and here’s what we recommend for now since relief efforts are still developing:

• Donate online directly to a “Burien Apartment Fire” fund courtesy the American Red Cross. The Red Cross website says:

“Help the Red Cross provide food, shelter and hope to the victims of the Burien Apartment fire. All American Red Cross disaster assistance is free, made possible by voluntary donations of time and money from the American people. The American Red Cross honors donor intent. By making a gift to this fund, your gift will be used to provide assistance to individuals and families affected by the fire. If you would prefer to make a gift to support the thousands of disasters the Red Cross responds to each year across the country, please select the National Disaster Relief Fund. If you wish to support disaster relief in our local community, please select the American Red Cross Serving King & Kitsap Counties Fund.”

• Donate by phone: With a credit card, you can make a secure Red Cross donation over the phone weekdays between 8:30am – 5:00pm by dialing (206) 323-2345.  Make sure and specify that the donation goes toward the “Burien Apartment Fire”.
• Donate by snail mail: Send a check or money order to the American Red Cross Serving King & Kitsap Counties with “Burien Apartment Fire” in the Memo Field and mail it to:

Seattle Red Cross
P.O. Box 3097
Seattle, WA 98114-3097

• As of today, here are local businesses that are accepting donated goods for the fire victims:
  • Sterling Savings Bank, located at 224 SW 152nd Street in downtown Burien is accepting and holding donations; contact number is (206) 243-6869
  • Collins Chiropractic, located at 619 SW 152nd in downtown Burien is accepting and holding donations; contact Lindsay at (206) 242-0998

NOTE: Until we gather more info on the victims, we recommend that our Readers either donate cash directly to the Red Cross, or purchase Gift Cards to local businesses and drop them off at either Sterling Savings or Collins Chiropractic.

Until we know specific needs and sizes we recommend NOT donating clothing yet – stick to either cash or Gift Cards for now.

If you own a business, or are a Reader who wishes to help, please email us – our goal is to serve as the online resource for assisting our neighbors in need, and this effort is only just beginning.

WHITE CENTER – The 16-year old boy who fatally shot a White Center man during a burglary attempt last fall plead guilty this morning to second-degree murder.

Jonathan Newman was originally charged with first-degree murder in juvenile court shortly after the slaying of Craig Hoffman, 46. But the case was remanded to adult court Monday after King County prosecutors agreed to charge the boy with second-degree murder in exchange for the guilty plea.

Sentencing was scheduled for June 13. Prosecutors plan to seek a sentence of up to 23 years in prison.

Andrea Mathison, Hoffman’s sister, was in court this morning when Newman pleaded guilty. She said she was pleased the teen’s plea meant the case would not go to trial.

“He admitted what he did was wrong,” said Hoffman, of Lakewood, Pierce County. “That part is very comforting.”

According to charging papers, Newman, who was 15 at time, and two other teens saw Hoffman drive away from his home the morning of Oct. 19. Newman entered the house through an open garage and then let the other two boys in through the front door. When Hoffman returned a short time later the boys raced out of the house with stolen items in hand, court documents said.

Deputy Prosecutor Amy Montgomery said Newman shot Hoffman as the homeowner was chasing the teens off his property.

The two other teens have pleaded guilty in juvenile court and had agreed to testify against Newman.

SOURCE:

• The Seattle Times