Around Oregon
Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:12 AM PDT
Wanted Baker City man arrested in Portland
PORTLAND (AP) — Police arrested a 24-year-old man wanted for an Oct. 22 shooting in Baker City.
District Attorney Matt Shirtcliff of Baker County says investigators traveled to Portland to arrest Zachary Persicke on a charge of first-degree assault. He is accused of shooting Jesse Rounsville in the torso. The 46-year-old Rounsville was flown to a Boise hospital, where he is expected to recover.
The case will go before a grand jury next week.
Persicke moved to Baker City about two months ago from the Everett, Wash.
Shirtcliff said police learned early this week that Persicke went to Portland after the shooting.
5 Oregon schools on safety watch list
MEDFORD (AP) — Five Oregon schools have been added to the No Child Left Behind safety watch list, the state Department of Education said this week. The schools made the list based on the number of expulsions last school year for offenses such as assault or weapons possession. Three of the schools are in Southern Oregon — Ponderosa Junior High in Klamath Falls and Medford’s Hedrick and McLoughlin middle schools. Also on the list are Reynolds Middle Schools in Fairview and the Reynolds Learning Academy.
Though the watch list for potentially dangerous schools is required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, states set their own standards for what is considered unsafe. Educators have long disputed Oregon’s method of determining which schools are dangerous, saying schools that crack down on weapons and violence by expelling students are safer than those that overlook problems or let violators slide.
Driver didn’t see giant rabbit driving pedicab
PORTLAND (AP) — The Mercedes driver testified he didn’t see the 6-foot-tall orange rabbit driving a pedicab because he was fumbling for a dropped cell phone. Pedicab driver Kate Altermatt tells The Oregonian she finds that hard to believe, noting she was wearing a bright orange bunny suit — for Easter — and her Cascadia Pedicab was lit up with reflectors and a blinking red light. She says the crash sent her flying and totaled the pedicab.
She confronted the driver Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
After a daylong trial, Judge Karin Immergut found Edward Cespedes-Rodriguez guilty of hit and run driving for leaving the scene of the crash last April 12.
Lost elderly cat rescued by library staffers
WEST SLOPE (AP) — A 16-year-old cat named Rosie had been missing from her home in the Portland suburb of West Slope for two weeks when she showed up a mile and a half away — at the West Slope Community Library.
There cat-loving staffers had her checked for a microchip and checked by a vet, who said she was old, healthy and clearly not a stray. Children’s librarian Kirsten Freeman-Benson took the friendly cat home with her and posted photos on the library’s Facebook page.
A library patron posted fliers in nearby neighborhoods.
A week later, on Oct. 16, Lisa Veri called the library to say her family had seen the flier and was sure the cat was their beloved Rosie, by then missing for three weeks. They, too, had put up fliers, and searched animal shelters, but the librarians’ decision to put Rosie on hold helped bring her home.
Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com
