WSU Students Sentenced In Connection With Fires

COLFAX, Wash. (AP) — Two expelled Washington State University students have been each sentenced to one year in prison for setting a series of fires last spring on the WSU campus.

Nineteen-year-old Ian J. Copland, of Aberdeen, and 22-year-old David P. Miner, of Tacoma, were sentenced Friday by Whitman County Superior Court Judge David Frazier. The judge ordered Copland and Miner to pay more than $6,800 in restitution to the university, fire crews and the WSU police department.

Copland and Miner were expelled from WSU after they were arrested. Copland is the son of Grays Harbor District Court Judge Tom Copland.

Authorities charged Copland and Miner with setting at least 10 fires in residence halls, parking garages and garbage bins around the Pullman campus in the early hours of April 21. The fires forced the evacuation of about 900 students from a WSU dormitory complex.

Prosecutor Denis Tracy told The Daily World that defense lawyers argued the fires were college pranks. He said he had a different name for it, though. “I call it arson,” Tracy said.