April 24, 2008

Schrag citation dismissed

Ritzville District Court entered an Order of Dismissal for a citation issued to city council member Mike Schrag on Thursday, April 17. Schrag was originally cited for violating an anti-harassment order that has been in place since January of 2008.

According the Ritzville Police Department’s Law Incident Log, which tracks calls for service, a female complainant employed at Sterling Savings Bank notified police on Wednesday, April 9, that Schrag had violated the anti-harassment order by driving past the bank inside the 150-foot buffer zone that was created by the anti-harassment order.

Based on the language of that anti-harassment order, City Prosecutor Mark DeWulf instructed law enforcement to issue a citation to Schrag for violation of the order.

Since that time, DeWulf has led an effort to clarify the anti-harassment order and inject more precise language into the order in terms of what is and isn’t allowed.

DeWulf, in an e-mail to the Ritzville Adams County Journal, stated that the dismissal of the citation was for “inconsistencies between the written order for protection and the oral instructions (by Judge Adalia Hille) which have now been clarified by the parties to the order, and the court, through modification of the order for protection, and it was in the interests of justice to dismiss the case.”