Community Police & Fire

Gig Harbor Police Blotter: Driver claims he’s not a person

Editor’s note: The Blotter is written based on information provided by Gig Harbor Police and Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One.

A driver refused to answer an officer’s questions because “he was not a person but an entity and did not comply with state laws.”

The officer pulled the man over Oct. 4 after he sped past his patrol car on Borgen Boulevard. The man was driving well over the speed limit while staring at an electronic device in his lap. The driver, a 29-year-old Gig Harbor man, did not initially notice the patrol car’s emergency lights. He eventually pulled over after the officer sounded his siren.

The officer remembered a previous incident with the same driver during the Race for a Soldier fundraiser on Sept. 11. The man was speeding on Soundview Drive while runners were in the roadway. The driver gave the same “not a person but an entity” excuse that time. The officer let him off with a warning.

He wasn’t so lucky the second time.

The man continued to insist that as an “entity” he was not required to possess a drivers license or follow state law. He also said that “he was not driving; he was traveling and was not required to have an identification or driver’s license.”

Nonetheless, the officer cited the driver for several traffic violations.

One trip, two DUI suspects

An officer taking one DUI suspect to jail ended up arresting a second on Highway 16 early on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 2.

The first arrest occurred at about 11:50 p.m. Oct. 1 on Skansie Avenue. A neighbor reported a man trying to put back together a Ford Taurus that had obviously been involved in a collision.

Officers found the Taurus blocking the roadway. It was missing a front tire, had undercarriage damage and its front axle “was destroyed and disconnected.” The bumper had been placed on top of the car. The vehicle clearly had been in a collision, but the officer couldn’t determine where.

The driver agreed to submit to breathalyzer tests. Preliminary results showed he was well above the legal limit.

While an officer was taking that suspect to jail, he came upon a Ford pickup swerving in its lane on Highway 16. The Gig Harbor officer radioed dispatch to ask that a state trooper respond to pull the car over.

The officer noted that he typically wouldn’t pull over a second vehicle while he already had a suspect in his patrol car. But when the truck nearly swerved into another vehicle on Highway 16 at Sedgwick Road near Port Orchard, he opted to make an exception rather than wait for State Patrol to arrive.

The truck stopped at first in the lane of traffic on Highway 16, at about 2:30 a.m. After it pulled off to the shoulder, the officer noted multiple empty or half-full beer bottles inside the vehicle. That truck’s driver also agreed to breathalyzer tests and blew well in excess of the legal limit.

GPS device in keychain comes in handy

A GPS tracking device inside a keychain helped Gig Harbor officers recover a backpack and work keys stolen from outside a Gig Harbor home on Oct. 1.

The victim called police on Oct. 2 to let them know he had tracked down the items, which were stolen from an unlocked car the previous day. He said a GPS locating chip in the keychain indicated the items were inside another vehicle at an apartment complex on Soundview Drive.

The officer and theft victim saw the backpack in plain sight inside the vehicle. The owner of that vehicle, however, refused to speak with officers or allow them to retrieve the backpack.

Officers impounded the vehicle and had it towed to the Gig Harbor Police Department. After applying for a search warrant, they returned the stolen items to their owner later that afternoon.

The report was referred to prosecutors for a possible charge of possession of stolen property.