PATRIOT BREMERTON
GO HAWKS! Pullout Poster
Inside Kitsap Week!
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 2015 | Vol. 17, No. 47 | WWW.BREMERTONPATRIOT.COM | 50¢
Families rebounding from Christmas Eve fire
CHROMED CLASSIC COUPE
Community raises $1,500 and Red Cross provided temporary housing for victims
Peter O’Cain / staff photo
Shasta Hartford with her son, Devin, and Donovan Simms. BY PETER O’CAIN POCAIN@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
“The whole house was Engulfed in flames” The neighbors upstairs had a history of noise. One time, their boy tried to break open a frozen bottle of water by slamming it on the floor again and again until she went up there and complained. So when the banging started, Sarah Parker, 22, didn’t think much of it. She was watching TV with her 2-year-old nephew, Devin, at her sister’s duplex apartment on Houston Street in Anderson Cove. It was two days before Christmas. “They were being really loud and so I was like ‘That’s weird. I wonder why they’re being so loud?’” Parker
said. “Even Devin was like, ‘I wish they’d stop.’” The lights began to flicker and then she heard the neighbors’ smoke detector sound. It stopped after a few minutes. “So it was going off and then I heard it shut off and so I’m like, ‘Oh, they got it taken care of,’” Parker said. “But in reality, it probably just melted.” About 10 minutes after the banging started, someone came to her door. “Not just knocking, like knocking worse than a cop, like punching the door,” Parker said. She opened the door and standing before her was a man she’d never met. He was tall and thin with light blonde hair; he looked to be in his 30s, Parker said. “He just screamed at me that ‘You need to get out of the house, it’s on fire,’” Parker said. She went back into the house a bit frazzled, thinking it was probably just a small fire and she needed to leave as a precaution. Parker grabbed Devin and the remains of her nephew, Hendrix, who died in 2011 at 3 months old, and then left. “As I was walking up the stairs, the whole house was engulfed in flames, like the whole house was on fire,” Parker said. “I was just sitting there like ‘Why didn’t somebody come and get me like 10 minutes ago?’”
Chris Tucker / staff photo
Dave Dally, left, of Shelton, shows his 1955 Chevrolet Sport Coupe to Larry Cleeton and Charlie Holman during the Cool Car Cruise in Bremerton on Jan. 1. The paint color was “violet pearl,” Dally said. He said the car originally came with a two-speed automatic transmission, but it now had an upgraded five-speed Tremec manual transmission as well as an upgraded engine. More than a couple hundred classic cars were on display during the event, which was held in the parking lot of Shari’s Restaurant. The neighbors upstairs didn’t think anyone was home, Parker said. It turns out, one of the fire was started by pot of oil cooking on the stove, according to officials. “It was terrifying” Shasta Hartford (Parker’s sister and Devin’s mother) was at a holiday party at the Baymont Inn & Suites on Kitsap Way when the fire started. She was with her boyfriend, Donovan Simms, and her roommates Jordyn
Henning and Casey Smith, Sr. Henning has a 7-month-old daughter who was with Henning’s mother and grandmother at the time. Hartford, 23, and Henning, 22, work at the Baymont as housekeepers. They’d been gone maybe 45 minutes when Simms, 23, received a call from a hysterical Parker. “It was generally disbelief,” Simms said. “I stayed on the phone with her I’m pretty sure until we got in the car.” Parker called Simms because he was the first person in her call logs.
Hartford is happy she did. “I’m glad she called Donovan instead of me because I freak out too, Donovan doesn’t freak out, he stays pretty calm,” Hartford said. “She did really good. She got Devin out and she got my angel son’s ashes out. I’m eternally grateful for that.” It was raining that night and in her rush to flee the house, Parker forgot shoes for Devin. She held him in her arms in the rain until some people SEE FIRE, A9
Construction gear valued at $15,000 stolen from Kitsap Salvation Army BY PETER O’CAIN POCAIN@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Police are looking for three people in connection to the burglary of a construction site at Salvation Army on Sixth Street Dec. 29 around 1 a.m. TJC Contracting released video of the theft taken from Salvation Army security cameras. Two people slipped into the construction area through a gap between a chain link fence and the building, while a third waited nearby in a vehicle. They made off with about $10,000-
$15,000 in equipment, said Tim Cummings, owner of TJC Contracting, who’s adding an extension to the building. The entire operation took about six minutes. “They definitely knew what they were doing,” Cummings said. He estimates seven to nine nail guns, two large gauge nail guns, a chainsaw and a $1,300 Hilti drill, among others were stolen. Cummings requires his employees to provide their own nail gun and saw, so much of the stolen equipment belonged to individuals, not TJC.
Nail guns cost about $240-$300, Cummings said. The equipment belonged to TJC Contracting and seven of its employees, Cummings said. Despite the loss of equipment, work hasn’t slowed down. “We’re actually really fortunate to have a lot of contractors that we’re friends with to loan me stuff if I need them,” Cummings said. For TJC employee Jerry Cline, it was the beginning of a rough end to 2014. On New Year’s Eve, someone stole his car. Bremerton Police have no leads to date.
Pete O’Cain / staff photo
Work continues at the Salvation Army site despite a recent theft.