A few of our diligent news hounds here in The News Tribune spotted a dark grey plume of smoke out our windows within the last 30 minutes.

Tacoma Fire reported that the smoke was coming from a small brush fire at Peck Athletic Field at South Sprague Avenue and South 15th Street. The fire appears to be out now because I no longer see any smoke from my chair.

The brush fire is one of several that South Sound firefighters are fighting today. A blaze scorched a section of brush along Interstate 5 near Southcenter just before noon.

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Here are a few of the details that didn’t make it into today’s story about the National Guardsman who got beaten up by five strangers.

We contacted the soldier Wednesday afternoon. He politely declined to speak with us about the incident, saying his superiors at the National Guard had told him not to talk with the media. We should have put that in the story.

I asked Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer if there have been any other similar attacks on uniformed soldiers. He said he hadn’t heard of any. This incident was fairly unusual.

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The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department is again offering its community academy.

The academy gives residents a chance to learn more about police work and the Sheriff’s Department.

The upcoming academy will be held in the Parkland and Spanaway area and starts Sept. 21. Classes meet once a week from 7 to 9:30 p.m. and are limited to 30 people. So, it’s first come, first serve.

As part of the academy, participants will meet the sheriff and other members of the department, learn about constitutional law, patrol procedures, drug investigations, crime analysis and domestic violence, and take field

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A 21-year-old man was shot in the leg Wednesday night on the East Side, Tacoma police reported.

The shooting occurred in the 4500 block of East F Street about 6 p.m. Police believe the victim was shot by a passenger in a car that then fled the scene, police spokesman Mark Fulghum said.

The victim’s injuries were not considered life threatening. He was being uncooperative with the police investigation.

Auburn police sent out a plea Wednesday afternoon for information on two teenagers who have runaway from a youth shelter.

Uniqua Strothers, 13, and Christina Palermo, 16, left the shelter about 7 p.m. Tuesday. Uniqua takes several medications each day but police say she’s not in any medical danger.

Uniqua’s mother told police the girls may be headed to Bellingham and stopping at shopping malls along the way.

Uniqua, pictured here, is black, 5 feet 3, weighs 115 pounds and has black hair and brown eyes. She usually wears prescription glasses and was last seen in a

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Associated Ministries will host a Moment of Blessing ceremony for Velma Tirado-Salway on Friday at 11 a.m. at the site where she was killed downtown.

Tirado-Salway was found fatally shot early Sunday on Court D Street South. No arrests have been reported, though it sounds like detectives are making some head way. That’s about all the department will officially release.

The site for the Moment of Blessing, near 1900 South Fawcett Avenue, will be marked with bamboo poles. Strips of red and purple cloth bearing the names of Pierce County’s homicide victims lace the bamboo poles.

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America is offering free presentations to local community groups interested in learning more about methamphetamine.

Meth, as most of you know, continues to be a problem in Pierce County.

Partnership for a Drug-Free America has trained teams of law enforcement officers, drug treatment specialists and drug prevention specialists to provide the “Meth 360″ sessions.

The presentations, which can last between 20 minutes and an hour, are aimed at mobilizing the community to fight meth and to prevent its spread.

The training can be tailored to the audience. The presentations are geared

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Our sister paper, The Olympian, posted this story today about a Level III sex offender being arrested on suspicion of more sex crimes. No real surprise there. The state considers Level III offenders the most likely to re-offend.

I think the interesting part of this case is the debate the story started among Olympian readers about how much background checking you should do on someone who will have contact – any contact at all – with your children. Some folks say they check out everyone. Others say that’s just paranoid.

How much checking do you do?

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