The latest news stories across the state of Oregon from the digital home of the Oregon coastal cities, OregonBeachMagazine.com
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
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Police Chase Woman who Breached Security And Steals A Van At The Southwest Regional Airport In North Bend
A security breach Thursday at the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport in North Bend led to a police chase down an airport runway.
A female suspect got into the airport operations area and stole an airport van. The woman drove down the runway pursued by state troopers, tribal police and officers from the North Bend Police Department.
She eventually crashed into a grassy area where she was apprehended by police.
Police say they’re not releasing further information on the breach.
Airport Manager Theresa Cook says anything that could be interpreted as disclosing airport security actions is protected from disclosure and declined to give further comment.
So far, the Coos County Airport Commission’s board members have been unable to give comment on the matter.
Former Coquille High School Teacher Indicted On Child Pornography Charges
Coquille police say a former Coquille High School teacher has been indicted on several felony charges.
Kory Sturgess, 32, has been under investigation since October 2021 for allegedly possessing child pornography. Police say a grand jury was convened and indicted Sturgess on several felony charges after the investigation was concluded. He was arrested on May 13th.
Officials say none of the images Sturgess possessed depicted children from the school or from Coos County.
Sturgess is now accused of 30 counts of encouraging child sexual abuse. He is held in the Coos County Jail on $200,000 bail. His next court date is June 6.
Roseburg Mom Helping Other Parents Find Formula With Facebook Group
Local moms are struggling to find baby formula as the national shortage continues. One mom is taking the initiative to start a Facebook group to help parents in Southern Oregon find the formula they need.
Sheila Ullom was a part of a national Facebook group for moms expecting in March, when her daughter was born. She saw a post from a mom who lives in another state, talking about being a member of a separate group to find baby formula.
When she looked to see if there was one locally, there wasn’t one. So she started her own – Formula Finders DC Oregon. https://www.facebook.com/groups/formulafindersdc/
If parents see formula on the shelves in a store, all they have to do is take a picture and upload it to the Facebook
group.
We want to keep you informed about COVID-19 in Oregon. Data are provisional and change frequently. For more information, including COVID-19 data by county, visit our dashboard: http://ow.ly/NzVU50Jau4z
OHA holds media briefing on COVID-19 today at 11 a.m.
Oregon Health Authority is hosting its monthly media availability to give an update on the COVID-19 pandemic on Wednesday, May 18.
Dean Sidelinger, M.D. MSEd, health officer and state epidemiologist at OHA, will discuss the state of the pandemic and answer reporters’ questions at 11 a.m. via Zoom.
Interested reporters can join via this link. A livestream will be available for the public on YouTube.
State election officials say early signs indicate yesterday’s turnout for the state primary elections may be among the lowest in the last 60 years. Officials say through last Friday, only about 17 percent of ballots that had been sent to voters had been returned.
The figure at this point was a little higher in the last primary four years ago — a little more than 18 percent. Voter turnout in the 2018 primary was almost 34 percent. But voter numbers have also surged during this time. There are almost 285-thousand more Oregonians who are registered to vote compared with four years ago. As of last night: Statewide voter turnout is 29%.
Two Out Of Three Counties Voting On The Proposed Idaho Annex Rejected The Jurisdictional Transfer In Early Returns
Oregonians in two counties appeared to reject a plan Tuesday to annex parts of Oregon into Idaho, while a third county supported the proposal.
The symbolic thumbs down came from voters in Douglas and Josephine counties, while voters in Klamath County backed the measure. The early results indicated the Greater Idaho movement has secured buy-in from slightly less than a majority of the counties outlined in its target areas across Eastern and Southern Oregon, which represents about three-quarters of Oregon’s landmass.
Shooting in Klamath Falls
Details and an official statement from the Klamath Falls City police are yet to come, but we are continuing to follow the story of a chase and a shooting that resulted in the death of one person in downtown Klamath Falls Monday afternoon.
Details and the timeline are sketchy, but the chase was reportedly at one point through several streets in the Mills Addition. It is known that at some point, a bullet had struck at least one Klamath Falls area law enforcement vehicle.
Initial reports indicate a female passenger in the vehicle being chased bailed out of a vehicle near Mills school. According to unconfirmed reports, the chase continued onto commercial near Oak street and ended across the
street from Eagle Ridge High School.
The high school was put on lockdown as a precaution. Unconfirmed reports say at the end of the chase, the suspect driving the vehicle in pursuit ended their own life with a gunshot. Much of the downtown area was roped off and inaccessible throughout the afternoon and late into the night as the investigation continued.
As more information is released from law enforcement, we will update this story.
Oregon FBI Warns of Cybercriminals Using a Reverse Instant Payment Scam
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recently issued a warning about a rise in payment scams. Victims appear to get a text message from a bank’s fraud alert department. The text asks if the customer initiated an instant money transfer using digital payment apps connected to a bank.
For example, a text may say- Bank Fraud Alert- Did you attempt an instant payment in the amount of $5,000? Reply, Yes or No, or 1 to stop alerts.
The payment amount and financial institution may vary from victim to victim. You may even receive different texts claiming to be from different banks because the crooks are hoping to guess your financial institution.
If the victim responds, they receive a phone call that appears to be from the bank’s legitimate 1-800 support number. The criminals may know a past address, your social security number, and the last four digits of your bank account. This information is used to convince you that the steps being requested are the financial institution’s legitimate process to stop that money transfer.
Once the fraudsters have you on the hook, here is how they steal your money. Using the bank’s legitimate website or application, the crook will instruct victims to remove your email address from their digital payment app and replace it with an email address controlled by the fraudsters. After the email address has been changed, the cyber crook tells the victim to start another instant payment transaction to themselves that will cancel or reverse the original fraudulent payment attempt. Unfortunately, victims are in fact sending instant payment transactions from their bank account to an account controlled by the criminals. Victims often only realize they’ve been scammed after checking their bank account balance.
The FBI recommends the following precautions:
Be wary of unsolicited requests to verify account information. Cyber actors can use email addresses and phone numbers which appear to come from a legitimate financial institution. If a call or text is received regarding possible fraud or unauthorized transfers, do not respond directly.
Instead, contact your bank’s fraud department through verified phone numbers and email addresses on official bank websites or from the back of your credit or debit card, never through a text or email you receive.
Be wary of callers that provide personally identifiable information, including social security numbers. Unfortunately, there have been so many large-scale data breaches over the last decade, criminals may know some of your personal data.
Your best protection, Enable Multi Factor Authentication for all financial accounts, and do not provide those codes to anyone.
If you’ve been a victim of an online fraud, report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
Sources: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA220414 —– FBI – Oregon
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