UW police looking for peeping Tom

University of Washington police are looking for a man who has been spotted inside the women's showers at a dormitory at least three times since November.

The peeping Tom hasn't hurt anyone — instead just running off when he has been seen, said Assistant Police Chief Ray Wittmier. Women reported seeing the man on Nov. 22, Nov. 28 and at 1:45 a.m. Monday in the sixth-floor showers of McCarty Hall. Police don't have a detailed description of the man.

Seattle

Man pleads guilty in mother's death

An 18-year-old Renton man charged with strangling his mother and leaving her body in a recycling bin pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder and will be sentenced Feb. 16.

Dale R. Frank, who was a 16-year-old Tahoma High School student when he was charged as an adult with the killing, faces a standard sentence of 10 to 18 years in prison.

Frank was accused of strangling Melody Maddox in March 2005 after the two had argued because he had been late to pick her up from work.

King County

Starbucks gives $550,000 for park

Starbucks Coffee announced a $550,000 gift to King County on Wednesday that will pay for a makeover of neglected White Center Heights Park.

The gift — the largest ever made to King County parks — will pay for materials to be used in a seven-day effort by volunteers to upgrade the 5.6-acre park, which is partially overgrown by blackberry vines. Improvements could include a paved walking loop, a playground, a basketball half-court, picnic shelter and tables, benches, sod and wetland restoration.

Public meetings will be held Feb. 6 and Feb. 15 to take citizens' suggestions about what improvements should be made. The meetings will be from 6 to 8 p.m. at White Center Heights Elementary School, 10015 Sixth Ave. S.W. The park is just south of the school.

Seattle

Traffic fatalities in county decline

Traffic fatalities in King County declined in 2006.

Last year, police and state troopers investigated 120 wrecks that resulted in a death, said State Patrol Trooper Jeff Merrill. Law enforcement across King County investigated 134 in 2005, according to the Patrol.

Similar figures for the rest of the state weren't available Wednesday.

Tacoma

Shooting under investigation

Tacoma police are investigating a shooting that put two people in the hospital Wednesday afternoon.

Police believe a man and a woman were driving together in a residential area of northeast Tacoma when they got out of their vehicle and started firing at each other.

Both suffered gunshot wounds during the 4 p.m. incident, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said. After the shooting, the woman apparently got back in the car alone and drove to a church parking lot in Federal Way, where someone noticed she was injured and called 911.

The woman was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle; the man was taken to St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Fulghum said. Their conditions were not known.

Seattle

3 more high schools to use Metro passes

High-school students from Roosevelt, Chief Sealth and Rainier Beach will join kids from Seattle's three other high schools on Metro Transit next school year, according to a transportation plan approved by the Seattle School Board on Wednesday.

Three additional high schools — Garfield, Ingraham and West Seattle — would convert to Metro service in 2008-09, followed by Cleveland in 2009-10.

The vote was 6-0. Board member Brita Butler-Wall was not present.

Several people who spoke during the public-testimony period on Wednesday opposed the measure, citing safety concerns and doubting that using Metro service would be fiscally prudent.

Until this school year, Nathan Hale High School was the district's only traditional high school without yellow-bus service. Currently, the district spends about $27 million on transportation. Students without yellow-bus service are given free Metro passes.

The School Board last year voted to scale back yellow-bus service to high schools as a way to save money. The board agreed to move Ballard and Franklin to Metro last fall and consider additional schools on a phased-in basis.

The district estimates that it would save $88,440 annually if Roosevelt, Chief Sealth and Rainier Beach students move to Metro.

Seattle

Proposal abandoned for tech academy

The Seattle School District announced Wednesday that it was abandoning a proposal to place an intensive technology academy within Rainier Beach High School. The nonprofit that offered the idea — Technology Access Foundation — planned to set up several such academies in communities of color, where students sometimes struggle to succeed.

But some parents opposed the proposal, fearing it would drain resources from the traditional high school.

Carla Santorno, the district's chief academic officer, rejected the idea that TAF Academy would hurt the current program at Rainier Beach, but on Wednesday, she told the Seattle School Board: "We have decided to consider other options for a site. Our goal is to find a school community that will embrace the TAF ideas."

Times staff and news services