SAFETY | Woman dies when struck by truck on Bel-Red Road [3] NEWSLINE 425-453-4270
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SPORTS | Newport boys claim first team scoring state championship at 4A state swim FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 and dive meet [8]
Business | New development to make big changes to Old Bellevue [6]
Bellevue Police reviewing inmate transport policies Escapee from district court prompts review of officer actions BY BRANDON MACZ BELLEVUE REPORTER
Bellevue Police are reviewing the process for transporting inmates following Wendell Downs' escape from custody at the Bel-
levue courthouse last month. Downs, 20, had been in custody since Nov. 12, when he was booked on firstdegree robbery, second-degree organized retail theft and two other felony theft charges. He was at the Bellevue Courthouse Jan. 31 for a misdemeanor traffic case. A Bellevue police support officer brought Downs and another inmate to the courthouse from the King County Jail around
11 a.m. Both inmates had their hands shackled in front of them and feet shackled to prevent them from running. Downs is reported to have started running after he was helped out of the van and is believed to have been picked up by his girlfriend, Tanjanique Hillis, at the bottom of the courthouse driveway. Hillis was arrested at another King County Courthouse on Feb. 18 and Downs remains at large.
"Any time something goes wrong, we're going to take a look at it and see, one, if there is any training we need to do or any procedures or policies like that," said Bellevue Police Lt. Marcia Harnden. Downs is the third inmate to escape custody at the Bellevue Courthouse, said Harnden, and has avoided capture the SEE INMATES, 5
UW medicine opens new specialty center BY DANIEL NASH BELLEVUE REPORTER
Bonnie Harpel, plant records volunteer at the Bellevue Botanical Garden, demonstrates the Tap to Learn system planned for launch in June with her 1-year-old son, Jude. BRANDON MACZ, Bellevue Reporter
Botanical garden taps smartphone technology BY BRANDON MACZ BELLEVUE REPORTER
The Bellevue Botanical Garden is embracing its techsavvy community by making education about its myriad plants as easy as getting on your smartphone. Funded through a grant from the Institute of Museum
and Library Services, the Tap to Learn program uses tags with encoded chips inside the plant beds that work with both near field communication and quick response (QR) code readers in a person’s phone. By tapping the tag in a garden bed — scanning if you
Dr. Quinn recently relocated with her husband to Seattle and is loving all the green, water and mountains in the Pacific Northwest. Dr. Quinn has a special interest in small animal internal medicine and abdominal ultrasound. In her free time she enjoys reading, traveling and swimming. While she loves all sizes and shapes of dogs and cats. Dr. Quinn has a special place in her heart for white fluffy dogs and one eyed cats.
Monday, (University of Washington) Medicine made a “huge step forward,” according to Dr. Eugene Yang, in expanding its patient services on the Eastside. The UW Medicine Eastside Specialty Center opened doors on a new facility on Northup Way on Feb. 24, completing the center’s move from its former 116th Avenue Northeast location. Constructed from the ground up, the 33,000-squarefoot Northup facility is a nearly fourfold expansion adding an urgent care clinic, more specialty services — such as gastrointestinal, echocardiology and sports medicine — expanded outpatient surgical capability and an on-site pharmacy and a reworked system for staging patients in examination rooms. It will be able to employ 40 doctors and 80 support staff, and take on double the center’s previous patient workload. Yang is the medical director of the center and a clinical associate professor of medicine in UW Medicine’s cardiology division. On a media tour a week before the center’s opening, while bustling workers were completing late-stage finishing touches on their work, Yang demonstrated some of the innovations made in the facility’s layout. Both floors’ public spaces are made up of long hallways demarcated by color to indicate specialty. Each section of hallway is its own waiting area; non-English speaking patients can request translation assistance through a dedicated phone service. These hallways are intersected by halls to examination rooms. “We’re set up to maximize efficiency, as well as patient flow,” Yang said. “Patients can do self-rooming, or they can
SEE GARDEN, 12
SEE UW MEDICINE, 5
Dr. Brook Quinn, DVM
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