Here’s the press release from DSHS about a court ruling on the constitutionality of the state’s civil commitment facility for sex offenders:

Appellate Court upholds the constitutionality

of the DSHS sex offender treatment program



OLYMPIA — A federal appeals court has upheld the constitutionality of the DSHS Special Commitment Center treatment program for sexually violent predators.



The Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the March 2007 action of U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez to dissolve a federal injunction against the SCC. At one point, DSHS faced a

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Law enforcement officers arrested a man early Thursday after finding drugs and thousands in cash in the man’s vehicle during a traffic stop in South Tacoma.

A Tacoma police officer and state Department of Corrections officer working on Tacoma’s gang team spotted a car squealing its tires in a parking lot in the 5000 block of South Tacoma Way just after midnight, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said.

The DOC officer recognized the car and its driver. The car left the parking lot and another Tacoma police officer in a marked patrol car stopped the car in the

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Click! customers are likely experiencing some problems this evening.

The cable provider has an announcement on its Web site.

Not to be outdone by Everett Police, the King County Sheriff’s Office offers up this stupid criminal story…

A woman called 911 Monday night to report an armed robbery at a convenience store while King County sheriff’s deputies were chasing the car she was riding in.

Deputies presume she was trying to get the pursuing deputies to bag off the car and respond instead to the robbery.

“It didn’t work,” the Sheriff’s Office reported.

Deputies eventually arrested the 44-year-old Bonney Lake man who was driving and the 35-year-old Puyallup woman in the passenger’s seat. He

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A teenager pleaded guilty Wednesday to being an accomplice in last May’s driveby shooting death of a man outside a Tacoma barbecue.

Hokeshine Lee Tolbert entered the guilty plea Wednesday morning to one count of second-degree murder as an accomplice in the May 10 death of Tracy Steele. As part of the plea agreement, the 17-year-old is required to testified in the trials of the other five people charged in Steele’s death, Pierce County deputy prosecutor Greg Greer said.

Tolbert, who had no prior felony convictions, will be sentenced after those trials. He faces between 10 years, three

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The trial will resume today for Pacific Police Chief John Calkins, who’s accused of drunken driving last year in Bonney Lake.

Closing arguments are expected today in Bonney Lake Municipal Court, which means the jury will likely start deliberating later in the day.

The trial, which began on Monday, took a break Wednesday.

Calkins testified on his behalf Tuesday. Find that story here.

And here’s the coverage of the first day of the trial.



UPDATE: Closing arguments took place this morning and the jury got the case shortly before 11 a.m.,

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The governor is asking the federal government to help small businesses impacted by a series of December snow storms.

This week, Gov. Chris Gregoire requested that the U.S. Small Business Administration to declare an economic injury disaster in all of the state’s 39 counties as a result of the heavy snowfall.

“The declaration can be a major boost in helping business owners recover from the effects of the snowstorms in an already difficult economic environment,” Gregoire stated in a press release from her office. “I urge the SBA to take prompt action on this request so small

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A Fort Lewis soldier accused of kidnapping and torturing two women in his Parkland home has returned to Pierce County.

Staff Sgt. Nathan Ryan Smith was booked into Pierce County Jail just before 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. He’s scheduled to make his first court appearance this afternoon.

Smith was arrested Jan. 16 in Texas after he was found in a rental car with switched plates. A warrant had been issued for the 29-year-old solider’s arrest after Pierce County prosecutors charged him with two counts of first-degree kidnapping, four courts of first-degree rape, attempted rape, felony harassment, destroying evidence and

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