MONDAY, AUGUST 23 This week of otherwise okay news begins with a hideous flourish of rape. The first story comes from up north, where police say a pair of teenage sisters answered a knock at the door of their Bellingham home this afternoon only to have a gun-wielding stranger force his way in and rape them both. As Bellingham cops told the Associated Press, the alleged attacker–52-year-old William Coggin from Maple Falls–was surprised by the return home of the girls’ parents and younger sister; the parents Coggin forced upstairs at gunpoint, while the frightened younger sister bravely embarked on what was unfortunately the least successful escape ever, fleeing the house only to fall down a culvert, break her leg in two places, and land on a beehive. Meanwhile, William Coggin fled in his van, which the traumatized family managed to describe well enough for police to track Coggin to a Whatcom County medical center, where they arrested him on charges of first-degree burglary and two counts of first-degree rape.
— Meanwhile in Seattle: Two women were assaulted this evening in the lobby and elevator of the University District’s Allegro Apartments. Good news: Thanks to a 911 call, police arrived before things progressed beyond punches and threats, and cops promptly hauled 44-year-old Curtis Thompson off to King County Jail on suspicion of robbery, assault, attempted sexual assault, kidnapping, and resisting arrest. Bad news: Fresh off a 17-year prison term for four brutal Seattle-area rapes, Curtis Thompson moved into his mother’s house in the Bryant neighborhood last October, after the jury at his civil-commitment hearing unanimously decided that the eight-time convicted felon was not a sexually violent predator and released him into society. Potentially good news: If convicted of the latest charges, Thompson faces his third strike and life in prison; as a number of Thompson’s alleged criminal actions were caught on the lobby’s surveillance camera, chances of convictions seem good.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 24 In far more positive news: Today several thousand citizens packed Seattle Center for Day #2 of the “Get Motivated” seminar at KeyArena. Featuring such success-story speakers as former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, and blond actress Goldie Hawn, the two-day seminar offered an estimated 15,000 attendees expert advice in attaining their dreams, and inspired at least a half-dozen kick-ass Hot Tips. First up are the impressions of eternal Hot Tipper Jake, whose Seattle Center day job put him in the thick of the wandering lunchtime masses just after they’d heard the Gospel According to Goldie. “Whose idea of motivation involves a lecture by a woman who got rich by acting dumb on TV?” said one female attendee, whom Jake approached because of her cigarette, and who characterized Hawn’s teachings thusly: “She had us turn to the person on our right and laugh as hard as we could for 15 seconds. Success, here I come!” The sentiments of the Wry Lady Smoker were subsequently expressed in a submission to I, Anonymous: “I hope that, like me, you were only at that bullshit Republican Jesus-fest because work told you to be there. I hope you realize that closet-queen minister and his porky MC wife, the ‘national recording stars,’ and those slimeball speakers are laughing all the way to the bank after patronizing us as ‘the movers and shakers of the Puget Sound region!’ Because let’s face it–if they were really that successful, what would they be doing lecturing a bunch of losers like us?”
— Speaking of movers and shakers of the Puget Sound region: Readers will remember the skin-burningly terrible story of two weeks ago, wherein an errant tour bus mortified a boatload of architecture aficionados by dumping the contents of the bus’ full-to-bursting sewage tanks off a bridge and into the hair, eyes, and mouths of the sightseeing tourists below. Today brought a reply to the million-dollar question: “Whose poo was it?” The alleged answer was beyond our wildest dreams: According to a civil complaint filed today by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the alleged poo-dumper is none other than the Dave Matthews Band Inc. , whose bus driver, Stefan A. Wohl, is named in the suit for allegedly dumping up to 800 pounds of human waste over Chicago’s Kinzie Street Bridge. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, authorities zeroed in on the Dave Matthews Band after one of the boat’s splatterees recognized the band’s buses from the parking lot of the Peninsula Hotel, where the enviro-friendly band stayed during its recent Chicago show; another source said video footage from near the bridge also captured images of a license plate that could be linked to the band. For its part, Dave Matthews Band Inc. is fully cooperating with the authorities–sending investigators pictures of their tour buses, offering to provide DNA samples to confirm the provenance of the poo–while standing by their man. “Our driver has stated that he was not involved in this incident,” reads a statement from the band. “We reserve judgment on anyone until we have seen the evidence.” The Illinois attorney general’s office is seeking $60,000 in penalties, but as eternal Hot Tipper Jake puts it, “If Dave Matthews is found responsible, he should have to buy everyone on that boat a new face.”
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25 Two years after she called God “a damned procrastinator” for not offing her sooner, today brought news of the death of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the Swiss-born psychiatrist who devoted her life to the study of death before handing herself over to eternity at age 78.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 26 Nothing happened today (unless you count George W. Bush‘s premiere acknowledgement of his mishandling of Iraq, admitting to a “miscalculation of what the conditions would be” after U.S. troops invaded, to the New York Times).
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27 Nothing happened today (unless you count the Associated Press story about the guy arrested for allegedly whipping another guy with a five-foot dead snake).
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28 As Iraqi insurgents blew up another pipeline in the West Qurna oil fields, Hot Tipper Erin reported an explosion much closer to home: While waiting at a red light near 15th Avenue, Erin noticed a male/female couple in the next car over. “I heard the female very angrily say, ‘So you want to fight?’ When I looked over, the woman driver and her male passenger were slapping and punching each other with both hands. It almost looked like a girly catfight, but they weren’t playing around.” Defending her decision to report the sighting to an alternative newsweekly rather than the authorities, Erin writes, “I didn’t call police because the woman appeared to be winning, and the man made no attempt to exit the car. Plus, the look on the guy’s face as the woman’s hand smooshed into it, pushing him against the window, was sort of funny.” Thanks to Erin for noticing and sharing, and to the male passenger for swallowing his pride and fighting like a girl, the only responsible way for a male to fight a female.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 29 The week ends with several huge groups of people doing things, including the more than 100,000 individuals who hit the streets of New York City to peacefully protest the presidency of George W. Bush, the more than 20,000 who filled the Tacoma Dome for Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry, and the however-many dozen who stuck it out through the closing ceremonies of the sparsely attended, super-exciting 2004 Olympics.
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