Remember the officers’ appreciation of Rory Vertigan’s actions the next time you hear some anti-gunner saying, “The cops don’t want private citizens to carry guns.”

Texas state Rep. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp is recognized worldwide as one of the leading advocates for an individual’s right to carry a concealed firearm. Several years ago, while testifying in opposition to additional gun control legislation, she related the emotional account of how she lost both of her parents to a lone gunman in 1991. At the time of the attack, Texas did not allow private citizens to carry concealed.

Seattle knew Edward McMichael by sight or sound, the bespectacled guy with the wispy beard and floppy Uncle Sam and Dr. Seuss hats. For decades he breathed life into his shiny brass instrument, outside city sports venues.

On Oct. 25, police say, McMichael, 53, was near a bus stop in the 500 block of Mercer Street when thugs attacked, beating and robbing him after midnight. He was taken to the hospital for head wounds and was home recovering. But he died sometime Sunday or early Monday.

Christian, a University of Tennessee student, and Newsom were on a date Jan. 6, 2007, when her sport utility vehicle was carjacked at gunpoint by several people in Knoxville.

The attackers blindfolded and bound the couple and took them to a rundown rental house. Police concluded Newsom was soon taken away, sexually assaulted, shot in the back of the head, set on fire and left beside some railroad tracks.

Christian was beaten and repeatedly raped over the next 24 hours. An autopsy said she died of suffocation after she was choked, wrapped in plastic bags and dumped in a trash can.

The men, the authorities say, had already strangled Dr. Petit’s wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and in short order would also kill the couple’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. The elder suspect, Steven J. Hayes, 44, had poured gasoline on the girls and their mother, according to a lawyer and a law enforcement official involved in the case, in hopes of concealing DNA evidence of sexual assault. He had raped Ms. Hawke-Petit, and his partner, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, had sexually assaulted Michaela.

Moments after Dr. Petit escaped, as the house was being surrounded by police officers, the men lighted the gasoline. The girls were tied to their beds but alive when the gas Mr. Hayes had spread around the house was set aflame.

A 17-year-old Kirkland resident who prosecutors say stabbed a man to steal his iPod “apparently for the fun of it” was charged Wednesday as an adult.

Michael J. McMahill-Dearmond, who lives in the 13000 block of 105th Avenue Northeast with his mother, was charged with first-degree assault and first-degree attempted robbery, according to the court documents.

McMahill-Dearmond is accused of attacking Michael Woolson, 48, near a parking lot at Carl Sandberg Elementary School in Kirkland about 1:30 a.m. Monday.

According to Seattle police, they have arrested a suspect in the stabbing death of 31-year-old Shannon Harps in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood on New Year’s Eve.

Shannon Harps, an organizer with the Sierra Club, was killed outside her apartment building on Capitol Hill.

Seattle police announced Friday that they have arrested 48-year-old James A. Williams of Seattle in connection with Harps’ slaying.

Authorities have said they believe Emerson was kidnapped in Union County and killed in Dawson County.

Her body was found nearly 50 miles from where she vanished during a New Year’s Day hike near Blood Mountain in Union County. An autopsy report says Emerson was beaten to death and then decapitated.

Hilton was the last person seen with Emerson on the hiking trail and had tried to use her credit card, according to his arrest warrant.

Hilton has been named as a suspect in the murder of two other women and the disappearance of a man in North Carolina.

If you could have teleported one object to Meredith at her final moments, would it have been a legal defensive gun or a note that said “Sorry, but you shouldn’t have one”? Now look at her picture and say that out loud.

A mother and daughter slain this week while hiking a popular trail in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest were shot, a Snohomish County Sheriff’s spokesman said Thursday.

Deputy Rich Niebusch provided few other details about the killings of Mary Cooper, 56, a librarian at Decatur AEII Elementary School, and her daughter, Susanna Cooper Stodden, 27, both of Seattle. They were killed while hiking on the Pinnacle Lake Trail, about 20 miles east of Granite Falls.

A Florida jury has recommended the death penalty for a plumber who kidnapped, raped and murdered a police detective’s daughter.

Michael King, 38, showed no reaction Friday afternoon as the jury’s 12-0 decision was announced in Sarasota. Jurors deliberated for nearly three hours.

King was convicted a week ago of first-degree murder and related offenses in the January 17, 2008, death of Denise Lee, a 21-year-old mother of two boys.

Would you rather a woman get raped and murdered than a criminal get shot?