MONDAY, AUGUST 30 This week of unrelenting awfulness in the Pacific Northwestâfollowed by a weekend of perfectly pleasant Bumbershooting at Seattle Centerâkicks off with some representative awfulness in downtown Seattle, where this afternoon a police officer came upon a man whittling in public and shot him dead. Conflicting mitigating factors: The whittling man reportedly ignored the officer's repeated commands to drop the knife, and the whittling manâ50- year-old John T. Williams, an eighth-generation First Nations wood carver and at-times- homeless man about townâwas reportedly deaf in one ear. As for Williams's killer, he'll be identified as Officer Ian D. Birk, a two-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department, who was reportedly Just Following Orders. (According to police protocol, the whittler's three-inch knife qualified as a deadly weapon, thus enabling Officer Birk to respond with deadly force.) For the full story on what will prove to be but the region's first killing-by-cop of the week, see page 11.
â˘â˘Meanwhile, today brought more awfulness in Vancouver, Washington, where this evening 28-year-old Bethany Storro was getting something out of her car when a stranger approached to ask, "Hey, pretty girl, do you want to drink this?" then threw a cup of acid in her face. Details come from the Associated Press, which reports Storro was rushed to the hospital with severe burns and described her attacker to police as a black woman between 25 and 35, with slicked-back hair in a ponytail. Lucky break: Just prior to the attack, Storro had purchased a pair of sunglasses, which will be credited with helping to save her eyesight. On Thursday, Storro will establish her badassery by facing the press with her bandage-wrapped head to recount the horrific attack (described to MSNBC as "the most painful thing ever"), reiterate her refusal to let the assault "wreck her life," and express bafflement over her attacker's motives. "Was it a dare or did the woman wake up Monday morning and tell herself that today she was going to 'carry some acid in a cup and throw it on the first person I see'?" The acid-throwing psycho remains at large.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 31 The week continues in nearby Pierce County, where today brought a blast of deadly horror to a Spanaway apartment complex. As KOMO reports, the drama commenced with an unruly guest who responded to his hosts' requests to leave by breaking a window, throwing a propane tank through another window, and hiding behind the couch until the arrival of Pierce County Sheriff's deputies, whose attempts to apprehend the 27-year-old man led to a violent struggle, during which officers subdued the man with a Taser, after which the man died. "Investigators say they believe the man was possibly high on drugs," reports KOMO.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 Speaking of kooky doings: The week continues in Silver Springs, Maryland, where today a man driven crazy by radical environmentalism, rampant misanthropy, imbalanced chemicals, and murderous hatred of Jon & Kate Plus 8 strapped homemade explosives to himself and stormed the Discovery Channel headquarters, where he took hostages in a four-hour standoff that ended with his fatal shooting by a SWAT team officer. Identified as 43-year-old James J. Lee, today's loon preceded his stupid death with an aggressively interesting life. "In February 2008, he was charged with disorderly conduct for staging a 'Save the Planet Protest,'" reports the Associated Press. "Lee threw fistfuls of cash in the air and paid homeless people to carry signs condemning the [Discovery Channel]. Police found his pockets stuffed with more than $20,000, according to court records." More recently, Lee was obsessed with such shows as Kate Plus Eight and 19 Kids and Counting. "Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding cultures," wrote Lee in a web manifesto, which called on the Discovery network to air "programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility." Now Lee is dead, none of his hostages were hurt, and the world population is down by one. For once, everybody wins.
â˘â˘Meanwhile in Seattle (where cops kill whittlers and routine jaywalking stops result in international controversy), today the King County Prosecutor's Office announced that it won't be filing hate-crime charges against Shandy Cobane, the Seattle police detective videotaped in April telling a Latino suspect that he would "beat the fucking Mexican piss out of you, homie" while appearing to stomp on his head. "We have determined that Detective Shandy Cobane did not commit the felony crime of malicious harassment, the state's 'hate crime' law," stated prosecuting attorney Dan Satterberg, concluding that Cobane didn't target and harass the suspect because of his race. Cobane is not off the hook yet: "I have contacted City Attorney Peter Holmes and asked him to review the case," stated Chief John Diaz on the SPD Blotter. "The Office of Professional Accountability investigation has yet to be completed and remains a very high priority."
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 Nothing happened today, unless you count the explosion of another oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico (which released a mile-long oil spill off the Louisiana coast, 200 miles west of the BP spill), or the roughly 200 peopleâincluding Mayor Mike McGinn and City Attorney Pete Holmesâwho crowded Seattle's Second Avenue tonight for a two-hour candlelight vigil for slain whittler John T. Williams.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 The week continues in West Seattle's Alki neighborhood, where tonight a 59-year-old man allegedly aimed an assault rifle at Seattle police officers, for which he was rightly and nonfatally shot by cops. The man was transported to Harborview and listed in stable condition.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 Speaking of depressing repetition, today brings another woman being attacked with acid, this time in Mesa, Arizona, where 41-year-old Derri Velarde parked her car at home and was accosted by a woman who threw concentrated acid in her face and fled. Police are looking for a suspect "described as a Hispanic female, 30 to 40 years old," reports KSAZ-TV.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 In some long-awaited good news, the week ends with a blessedly sunny day at the Bumbershoot festival, where Last Days was lucky enough to catch a powerful and lucid performance by Courtney Love/Hole (who opened with "Pretty on the Inside," closed with "Sympathy for the Devil," and covered Pearl Jam's "Jeremy") before racing to the Paramount for a glorious performance by the reunited Pavement (who played everything we wanted to hear during a show that felt like a rec-room party).
Dear cops: Please get your shit together. Dear everyone else: Enough with the acid attacks. Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.
