FBI Arrests Seattle Man For Suspicious Powder Incidents

KING 5 News reports that a 35-year-old Seattle man is under arrest for allegedly sending threatening letters to the Seattle Times. The FBI is also investigating if he was involved in an apparent pipe bomb incident last weekend. No one was injured in the incident, but the events were clearly designed to evoke fear.

In early October, the hazmat team was called to the Seattle Times building in downtown Seattle two days in a row. The newspaper had received threatening letters filled with a mysterious white powder that was later deemed not to be dangerous.

The FBI served a search warrant at the Willows Court Apartments in North Seattle earlier this week in connection to that investigation.

“Eight black SUV’s pull in to our street and then park, and then two police cards block each end of the street,” says Kelsey Wilson, who lives in the same apartment complex. “They were all wearing FBI shirts and their badges and bullet proof vests and they were carrying a battering ram.”

Friday, 35-year-old Jason Steadman, whose last name was found on the apartment directory, was arrested in West Seattle. A woman who answered the phone at his apartment issued a “no comment.”

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Drive-by Shooting Apparently Targeted Seattle Police

A disturbing and saddening first for the city of Seattle. Seattle police say the fatal drive-by shooting of veteran Officer Timothy Brenton on Saturday night represented something the department had not seen before: the apparent targeting of police at random.

“It was incredibly brazen and bold,” said Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel, who called the shooting an “assassination.”

Brenton, 39, a field training officer, and officer-trainee Britt Sweeney were seated in their parked squad car when Sweeney sensed danger over her left shoulder and yelled for her partner to duck.

A car pulled up alongside the officers’ car in the 100 block of 29th Avenue shortly after 10 p.m., and someone inside opened fire.

Bullets grazed Sweeney’s back as she hunkered down. Brenton was struck by several gunshots and died instantly.

Sweeney, 33, grabbed the police radio and called for help, jumped from the car and fired several rounds at the gunman’s sedan as it backed away from the cruiser, turned around and sped down the Leschi street, police said Sunday.

Speaking at a news conference Sunday afternoon, Mayor Greg Nickels called the shooting “a coldblooded killing.”

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