Guilty pleas in Arbor Heights/Fauntleroy/Beacon Hill robberies
Though the Morgan Junction murder trial was called off for the day, we stayed at the courthouse for a plea hearing in another West Seattle case. Indeed, the three men charged in the Arbor Heights and Fauntleroy street robberies last August 21st have just appeared before King County Superior Court Judge Carol Schapira to plead guilty as charged: 
22-year-old Hassan I. Abdirizak, 19-year-old Abdulkamir A. Ahmed, and 22-year-old Najib A. Aden. Each was charged with two counts of first-degree robbery and one count of attempted first-degree robbery – for a Beacon Hill incident the same night as well as the two in West Seattle.
None are West Seattle residents. Aden has been out of jail since November, while Abdirizak and Ahmed have remained in custody. Months ago, there was talk they might face charges in robberies elsewhere in the city, but as part of the plea bargain, no additional charges were or will be filed, and each pleaded guilty to the three original charges. Prosecutors will recommend what equals a 68-month (just over five and a half years) sentence – the top end of the “standard” range for 1st-degree robbery – for each one when they are sentenced, followed by 18 months’ community custody (probation). The sentencing hearing is scheduled for 1 pm April 18th.
Morgan Junction murder trial: No court today, judge out sick
No court today in what we’ve been calling the Morgan Junction murder trial – we arrived downtown only to learn that King County Superior Court Judge Theresa B. Doyle is out sick today, so that postpones the resumption of the trial until 9 am tomorrow (Tuesday). This is the fourth week that jurors have been hearing the case of Lovett “Cid” Chambers, charged with second-degree murder in the January 2012 shooting death of Travis Hood alongside Morgan Junction Park. WSB is the only news organization in court covering the trial start to finish; if you’re interested in catching up on our coverage, our report on Thursday’s proceedings (the trial is in recess on Fridays) includes links to all the previous installments.
Prosecution calls final witness as Morgan Junction murder trial ends third full week of testimony
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
After 3 1/2 four-day weeks on the case, the jury in the Morgan Junction murder trial is hearing from what’s expected to be the prosecution’s final witness.
Seattle Police Homicide Unit Detective Tim DeVore has been seated at the prosecution’s table for most of the trial, until now. On Thursday afternoon, he got up and crossed the courtroom to sit in the chair that constitutes “the witness stand.” Monday morning, he will be there again.
But first, Thursday began with more discussion of blood-alcohol levels, followed by an analyst’s report on defendant Lovett “Cid” Chambers‘s gun and ammunition – how it was tested and what she believed it showed.
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Morgan Junction murder-trial update: Intoxication calculations
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Afternoon testimony at the Morgan Junction murder trial on Wednesday centered on a sort of riddle: If you say you had X drinks during the time frame Y to Z, how did that equal a .20 blood-alcohol level five hours after the last reported drink?
That was part of a day of testimony in the murder trial of Lovett “Cid” Chambers that carried none of the drama of preceding days, which had featured segments of the video showing his “confrontational” – as even police acknowledged – questioning by Seattle Police Homicide Unit detectives. Wednesday, though, included no video, just testimony related to specific points of evidence and how it was processed and/or analyzed.
The day began with the cross-examination of SPD CSI Detective Kim Biggs. Her direct testimony had ended last Thursday, but King County Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle allowed the defense to postpone cross-examination until they had had a chance to deal with the fact the prosecution had asked her to take another look at Chambers’ BMW, which has been in police storage since hours after the January 21, 2012, shooting.
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West Seattle Crime Watch: Business burglary; package thief on video
Two reports in West Seattle Crime Watch this morning. Brad from West Seattle Cyclery (WSB sponsor) is hoping someone in the area has video showing the burglar(s) who broke into his shop early Tuesday:
we had a burglary early Tuesday morning. Approx 2:50am.
Mostly we had damage to the window, shattered but still intact, and the door glass broken out. We have had two attempts prior. The police were notified of both attempts and reports were filed.
After the two previous attempts we changed our security procedures at night. The changes helped reduce the inventory loss to just two 24″ kids bikes with a value of around $700. Glass replacement will be significantly higher.
There are a few more things we will be doing at night to continue reducing our potential exposure but the reality is we will never be able to reduce it to zero.
If any of our Junction neighbors had outside video from the time of the break-in, 2:40-3:20 am, please let me know (brad@westseattlecyclery.com). One of the bikes stolen was bright orange (SCOTT 24″ Voltage with disc brakes) so it should be pretty visible with color video.
Speaking of video, Heather shares this clip showing a package thief in action:
Just wanted to report the theft of a package from our porch on 37th Ave SW between Henderson and Trenton. It happened on the 15th of February in the wee hours of the morning. … The thief looks like a white female between 15 and 25 years of age, brunette hair. We’ve reported it to SPD and I’m happy to report everyone I spoke with was professional and courteous. They said absolutely share the info with WSB and said for crimes like these the community is often in a better position than police to locate suspects.
We didn’t lose anything of value and the merchant replaced it with no hassle. It’s more the idea of it. SPD confirmed that it’s important to report these types of things, even when the value is small.
Any idea who the thief is? Let police know.
Morgan Junction murder trial continues: Words and wounds
By Tracy Record and Katie Meyer
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
The jury in the Morgan Junction murder trial has seen the most graphic evidence presented yet – autopsy photos shown by the prosecution as a doctor from the King County Medical Examiner’s Office testified Tuesday afternoon.
The photos focused on the bullet wounds that killed 35-year-old Travis Hood, and while, as it was reiterated, there is no dispute that the shots were fired by 69-year-old defendant Lovett “Cid” Chambers, the question at issue in the trial remains why he fired them, and the granular details of the wounds are incremental evidence for jurors to consider.
Tuesday, however, began with an ending – the conclusion of testimony from the Seattle Police detective who led questioning of Chambers hours after the January 21, 2012, shooting. He was followed on the stand by his partner, who was also part of the questioning, video from which has been shown the past few days.
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Morgan Junction murder trial: ‘Confrontational’ video continues
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
What Monday’s only witness at the Morgan Junction murder trial explained as a police interrogation tactic was on display, raw, in video shown to jurors.
It was a continuation of the video playback begun on Thursday afternoon, from defendant Lovett “Cid” Chambers‘s 
session with police in a downtown interview room in the early morning of January 22, 2012, hours after he fired the shots that killed Travis Hood (photo at right).
A shouting crescendo eventually was reached through both Chambers’ professed inability to remember exactly why he fired those shots and detectives’ insistence that his memory lapse was manufactured.
That dominated the day, which began with one juror leaving the trial.
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West Seattle Crime Watch: Truck taken, followed, found
Thanks to everybody who tipped us about a big police response earlier this evening near Delridge/Thistle. It was about the pickup truck in the foreground. Police confirm it was reported stolen, and that they have a suspect in custody. Scanner traffic indicated that its owner had called police while following her stolen pickup southbound on Delridge.
West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen SUV; two hit-and-runs
Three reader reports this morning in West Seattle Crime Watch:
STOLEN SUV: Tony reports from Gatewood this morning, “A 2000 tan Chevy Blazer was stolen on the corner of 39th and Willow. Be watchful, the car was taken from the driveway of the homeowner around 3:00 am.” Plate: ANJ1117. (Side note – the SPD crime-reports map shows 8 other auto-theft cases in the past week, a lower rate than last time we checked the big picture.)
HIT-AND-RUN #1: From Randy – this happened early Saturday on Genesee Hill:
About 3 am, the police were heard knocking on our front door. They informed me that our car was hit by an apparent hit-and-run driver. Our Saab was spun 180 degrees and came to rest against a utility pole. We had owned the car since new, 1988, and would save it if we could, but it is beyond repair. It can be utilized as an organ donor. The car was parked on SW Genesee outside our home kitty-corner from Genesee (Hill) Elementary School. The hit-and-run driver has not surfaced.
HIT-AND-RUN #2: Christine reported this via the WSB Facebook page:
(Friday) night around 7 just north of the post office on California, my visiting parents’ rental car was struck in a hit and run. There were some people out walking dogs and 1 nice women thought she saw the women who hit the car and them apparently a boyfriend came to help get the car and took off!
Contact police with info on any of the above – or any other crime. P.S. The next community crime-fighting meeting is a week from Tuesday; the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meets March 18th, 7 pm, at the Southwest Precinct (Delridge/Webster).
Morgan Junction murder trial: Car controversy continues; Chambers shown on video
By Tracy Record & Katie Meyer
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
For the first time in the two weeks a King County Superior Court jury has spent hearing the case in the second-degree-murder trial of Lovett “Cid” Chambers, they have heard his voice.
As is standard in a criminal trial, the defendant is in the courtroom for all on-the-record proceedings, so the 15 jurors (including three alternates) have seen Chambers (at right, WSB courthouse-hallway photo from Wednesday) day in and day out. But he has not been on the witness stand. Thursday afternoon, before the trial went into recess until Monday (March 10th), prosecutors played parts of the video recording made during the hours he spent in a Seattle Police interview room – sometimes alone, sometimes with SPD personnel – after the January 21, 2012, shooting by Morgan Junction Park that left 35-year-old Travis Hood dead.
The video playback came while Detective Cloyd Steiger was on the witness stand. It happened in two somewhat lengthy stretches – the first was mostly quiet, in which Chambers appeared to be resting on a chair in the corner. (The jury watched on the wide-screen monitor used to show evidence; the defense, and gallery, were in view of a laptop screen from which the video was being played back.)
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Michael Stanley leaving jail Monday, no charges in assault allegations
Remember Michael Sean Stanley, the convicted rapist arrested in an Admiral alley in October after leaving Canada, where he’d been sought for cutting off a monitoring device? He has been in the King County Jail, serving time for harassment since pleading guilty in January, and it looks like he’s getting out this Monday as previously announced – the County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office says he won’t be charged with allegedly sexual assaulting a teenager before his arrest. The statement we received:
The King County Prosecutor’s Office has completed its review of a case involving Michael Stanley. The case is being declined for criminal prosecution because there is insufficient evidence to prove that a forcible sexual assault had occurred.
Canada does not want him extradited; he is an American citizen. At the time of his sentencing in January, the City Attorney’s Office noted that his history in our state includes burglary and DUI. Conditions with which he must comply in this case require him to “provide a DNA sample; obey written anti-harassment orders protecting the three victims; not violate criminal law; have no alcohol or drug offenses; abstain from marijuana; undergo chemical dependency treatment; possess no weapons, and update the court on his current address.” He will be under Municipal Court jurisdiction for two years.
Crime Watch: Woman assaulted; helicopter, K-9 search for suspect
After questions about a helicopter search in the Westwood/Roxhill area early today, here’s what we have found out: King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. Cindi West says a 58-year-old woman reported being attacked near 26th/Roxbury (map) just after midnight:
A man called and said a woman asked him to call the police because she had been assaulted by an unknown male.
When we arrived, we contacted a 58-year-old woman who said she had been walking eastbound on Roxbury on the south side of the street. She said as she was walking, a man approached her and asked for a cigarette. She gave him a cigarette and then the man grabbed her and pulled her to a nearby lot. The suspect then physically and sexually assaulted her.
The woman was taken to Harborview for treatment. We attempted a K-9 track but did not locate the suspect. At this time the only description we have is a black man, approximately 25 years old, last seen wearing a dark hoodie.
Seattle Fire and Police responded too; SFD spokesperson Lt. Sue Stangl says the victim “was transported (by) medics in serious condition with face and head trauma.”
West Seattle Crime Watch: Double trouble; vandalism alert; counterfeit cookie lovers
Three West Seattle Crime Watch notes tonight:
A burglary followed by an auto theft meant double trouble at K‘s home:
Our house on 47th and SW Hinds was broken into Wednesday morning when we were out for about 40 min. Rock thrown through the back window. Thief took all of the usual items; MacBook, small electronics, jewelry box. What we didn’t realize was that they’d also taken the spare key to my car and came back last night to help themselves to that too! Car was found totaled in Holly Park by police at 3am.
Car vandalism is the problem in Antonio‘s neighborhood:
I just wanted to submit that the Cottage Grove area has seen some car vandalism lately. My neighbor on 26th has recently had one of his car windows bashed out or shot out parked on 26th and there is an apparent BB shot targeted at the window of my mother in laws car on the same street. This same car was a victim of a hit and run very recently while parked on the same street. I remember too a few months back a neighbor on the corner of 26th and Hudson had the side of his car tagged up but I’m unsure if he reported it or not. I guess long story short, people should be parking in their driveways or garages until whomever is responsible is apprehended. It’s quite pathetic whomever is doing this vandalism and awfully costly for those who have go through the hassle of insurance claims and out of pocket deductibles.
And a quick mention – beware of counterfeit bills; a local Girl Scout mom told us a troop selling at Admiral Safeway was given a fake $100 bill while selling cookies earlier this week.
Morgan Junction murder trial: Defense protests ‘surprise,’ calls for mistrial
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
The jury in the Morgan Junction murder trial never did re-enter the courtroom after lunch on Wednesday.
While they waited behind a closed door at the back of Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle‘s courtroom – the door bailiff Nyoka Maraire opens multiple times each session before calling out, “Please rise for the jury!”– a drama played out just yards away, with the case’s future at stake.
Defense attorney Ben Goldsmith announced he wanted the judge to declare a mistrial – or, to at least have the jury be told to ignore the testimony of Seattle Police CSI Detective Kim Biggs, who had been on the witness stand all morning and part of the preceding afternoon.
Just before the noon break, Det. Biggs had been testifying about what she saw in defendant Lovett “Cid” Chambers‘s blue BMW, which has been in the SPD evidence-processing facility since hours after the January 21, 2012, fatal shooting of Travis Hood. She talked about going back for a look at its door locks recently. (They figure into the defense’s version of what happened that night.)
“Two weeks before the trial started, (prosecutor Margaret) Nave asked Detective Biggs to re-check the locks of the BMW. The defense was never told about this. We learned at 11:40 this morning when (Biggs) was testifying … that came as an enormous shock to us.”
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High Point murder: Jose J. Gonzalez-Leos charged with murdering Nga Nguyen
A charge of first-degree murder is now filed against 20-year-old Jose Jesus Gonzalez-Leos of White Center in connection with the killing of his ex-girlfriend’s mother in High Point last December. He is the man arrested last Saturday on suspicion he killed 46-year-old Nga Nguyen, found dead in her closet on December 14th, from strangulation and blunt-force head injury. Charging documents say he broke into Nguyen’s apartment through a second-story window on December 14th after going there in hopes of speaking with the victim’s daughter. The documents allege he killed her with a motive including sexual gratification; evidence described in the charging papers includes DNA found on the victim’s body that matched Gonzalez-Leos’s saliva. He is described as having no apparent felony history, though, as we reported last Saturday, online records indicate he is facing charges of stolen-property trafficking in south King County, and court documents say he told investigators he is addicted to meth and marijuana. He is scheduled to appear in court on March 19th to answer the charge; his bail remains set at $2 million.
ADDED 9:18 PM: More information from the charging documents:
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Morgan Junction murder-trial jury hears from police and a passerby
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Punctuating two Seattle Police witnesses’ testimony about evidence, a passerby witness was put on the stand Tuesday by the prosecution in the Morgan Junction murder trial.
They started the day listing six witnesses they thought they would get through – but in the end, only three of them were heard from, the first one a holdover from Monday, the third one to continue today.
Between legal arguments and breaks, total testimony time tends to add up to about 4 1/2 hours a day.
As Tuesday began with SPD fingerprint examiner Betty Newlin continuing on the stand, questioned by deputy prosecuting attorney Mari Isaacson, the subject was fingerprints and their presence or lack of same on pieces of evidence in the case.
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Morgan Junction murder-trial update: Back to the background
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
It was back to the background as the Morgan Junction murder trial continued Monday.
With testimony concluding last week from key prosecution witness Jamie Vause, who says he saw defendant Lovett “Cid” Chambers shoot his friend Travis Hood, the lineup of witnesses returned to a focus on public-safety and criminal-justice personnel through whom lawyers wove threads of the story.
Three sections from the timeline of events were involved in Monday’s testimony, all taking place after the shooting on January 21, 2012:
*What happened when Vause brought Hood to Providence Mount St. Vincent, as told by a PMSV receptionist and Seattle Fire Department paramedic
*What happened when the Southwest Precinct Anti-Crime Team went to Chambers’ Gatewood home after he was identified as a suspect, as told by the ACT’s then-leader and two officers
*What happened when evidence was analyzed later, as told by Seattle Police and State Patrol Crime Lab personnel
Here’s our distillation of what the jury heard about all of the above:
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West Seattle Crime Watch: Street holdup; Maxima stolen again…
Three reports in West Seattle Crime Watch today, starting with this just in from SPD Blotter – heard snippets on the scanner overnight but now the police have a full report:
On March 2nd at approximately 12:57 a.m. officers responded to the report of an armed robbery of a citizen near California Avenue SW and SW Dakota Street. Preliminary investigation indicates that a man and a woman were walking on California Avenue SW when two black male suspects in their 20′s approached them. One of the suspects brandished a handgun and robbed the victims of their cell phone, money, purse, wallet and ipad.
The suspects then fled the scene running northbound in the alley on the west side of California Avenue SW. A witness saw a black male get into the front passenger seat of a white Lexus sedan. The Lexus was last seen driving eastbound from SW Bradford Street and California Avenue SW. The suspect vehicle is further described as a white Lexus 4-door sedan with gold trim and Washington plates. There are no further suspect descriptions available at this time. The suspects and suspect vehicle remain at large.
Anyone with information about this incident or who may know the identities or whereabouts of the suspects or suspect vehicle is asked to call 911 or Seattle Police and refer to this incident. Anonymous tips are welcome.
Speaking of cars – for the second time in two weeks, someone has taken Trevor‘s car:
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West Seattle Crime Watch: More charges for Nicholas Broughton, now out; judge refuses to raise bail
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Two more charges have been filed against 32-year-old Nicholas Broughton (right), the repeat offender arrested one month ago after stealing an SUV in Tacoma, getting detected by LoJack here in West Seattle – drawing the Guardian One helicopter (whose crew published video of the incident) – crashing the SUV through a fence, and breaking into a relative’s home.
By the time the new charges were filed, Broughton had been out of jail a week and a half, and while prosecutors asked the court to reinstate a higher bail, a judge told them no.
We discovered all this while making a routine check of the case’s status, via online court files; here’s what we found:
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