Keeping watch: a look back at fire and police in 2016

MOSES LAKE — 2016 was a busy year for police and emergency services in the Columbia Basin with shooting deaths less than two weeks apart with no arrests, a bomb scare at a local bank, and two families losing their homes in a large wildfire.

On Dec. 10, Arturo Sosa, 28, of Othello, was traveling west on state Route 26, about three miles east of Royal City, with an unidentified person when the vehicle they were in came under fire. Sosa died from wounds he received in the shooting. The second person in the vehicle was airlifted from the scene. There have been no arrests made in the case so far.

Less than two weeks later on Dec. 22, Jill M. Sundberg, 31, of Quincy, was found shot to death 1.5 miles west of Silica Road on the Old Vantage Highway, near George. An autopsy determined the cause of Sundberg’s death to be gunshot wounds and her manner of death was classified as a homicide. Just as in the Sosa case, there have been no arrest made so far and no suspects have been named.

The cold fall and winter months of 2016 were a stark contrast to the blazing heat that scorched the Basin over the summer. The heat played a big factor in fire that broke out on a rural property seven miles north of Moses Lake in early August. High winds caused the fire to spread and when the smoke cleared more than 3,200 acres of land were scorched, including the homes of two families.

A few months later an abduction shocked the Moses Lake area after a woman walked into Horizon Credit Union with what was believed to be a bomb taped to her. The device was later determined not to be a bomb, with the woman claiming she was abducted from her home in the Garden Heights neighborhood by two unknown men and forced to enter the bank and demand money. The incident is still under investigation by the Moses Lake Police Department and the identities of the two alleged suspects have not been made public.