Pierce County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a 50-year-old man tonight after the man allegedly opened fire while a SWAT team served a search warrant at his home near Roy.

The man used a Russian style high-powered assault rifle to shoot at deputies and a sheriff’s airplane that was helping to serve a high-risk search warrant at the man’s 20-acre rural property in the 2500 block of state Route 702, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said.

SWAT brought armored vehicles to serve the warrant because the man allegedly shot at his neighbors earlier in the
day. Troyer said the man …

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Tacoma police and fire are recovering a body from a creek near E. 38th Street and Portland Avenue.

Officers were called this afternoon to a ravine near a housing development after somebody reported seeing a woman’s body.

The body “has probably been there a couple of days,” Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said.

There are no obvious signs of trauma. The body is being sent to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office to be identified and have the cause of death determined.

A state Department of Corrections worker upset about his pending divorce and his wife’s new boyfriend choked the woman unconscious and threatened to shoot her Monday, according to newly filed court papers.

Pierce County prosecutors today charged Charles Anthony Rodriguez, 33, with two counts of second-degree assault and one count each of unlawful imprisonment, felony harassment and attempting to elude a pursing police vehicle.

Prosecutors allege Rodriguez used a firearm in three of the counts, which would add extra time to any sentence he receives if convicted as charged.

Superior Court Judge pro-tem Sergio Armijo ordered Rodriguez jailed in lieu …

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A Tacoma fire crew aboard the Commencement fireboat is trying to find the source of an oil sheen spotted this morning on the Thea Foss Waterway.

“It doesn’t sound like anything major,” Tacoma fire battalion chief Dyre Fudge said. “It appears to be minor.”

The state Department of Ecology and U.S. Coast Guard also have been notified.

Crews have been able to determine the sheen did not come from the city’s storm drainage system.

“It could be anything at all,” Fudge said.

The flags at all state agency buildings will be lowered today in honor of a U.S. Marine from Ferndale who was killed earlier this month in Afghanistan.

Marine Corp. Capt. Daniel B. Bartle, 27, died after a helicopter crash on Jan. 19 in Afghanistan.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has ordered that flags remain at half-staff until the close of business today or first thing Wednesday morning.

Congress amended the U.S. Flag Code to give governors the authority to lower flags when a state resident in the military is killed in the line of duty.  Other government entities, citizens and …

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The Washington State Patrol said its troopers responded to 4,014 incidents over a 10-day span in Pierce and Thurston counties during the snow and ice storms earlier this month.

The incidents included collisions, disabled vehicles, debris blocking the road, downed trees, medical emergencies and finding erratic drivers.

During the same time period, the State Patrol dispatchers fielded 3,985 911 calls in Pierce and Thurston counties.

UPDATED at 2:09 p.m.

Tacoma police have arrested a state Department of Corrections correctional officer suspected in a domestic dispute that prompted a lockdown this morning at a West End elementary school.

Officers spotted the officer”s car near North 10 Street and Skyline Drive and surrounded him about 12:25 p.m. After talking with a negotiator, the man surrendered without further incident just before 1:10 p.m., Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said.

DOC corrections spokesman Chad Lewis confirmed the man is a correctional officer at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton.

The officer worked the graveyard shift at the prison and …

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Pierce County prosecutors have charged a 33-year-old suspected of robbing three banks over the past several weeks.

Vladimir N. Shcherenkov was arraigned Friday on two counts of first-degree robbery in connection with two of the three heists. He was ordered held in Pierce County Jail in lieu of $150,000 bail.

Court documents outline three bank robberies in Pierce County since Dec. 11. A Pierce County sheriff’s detective suspects Shcherenkov is responsible for all three. Prosecutors were waiting for additional details before charging Shcherenkov in one of the cases.

The U.S. Bank in the 11000 block of Canyon Road East was …

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