Community Police & Fire

Gig Harbor Police Blotter: Woman, 70, jumps into her car as it’s being stolen

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

A 70-year-old Fox Island woman jumped into the passenger side of her vehicle as it was being stolen at St. Anthony Medical Center around 10:30 a.m. Aug. 14. She then convinced the thief to take her back to the hospital and turn himself in.

The woman left the vehicle running, with both the drivers and passenger doors open, in front of the hospital. She needed to go inside briefly to help her husband, who was in a wheelchair, get into the car.

While she was inside, a 24-year-old Tacoma man wearing a hospital gown jumped into the driver’s seat. The 70-year-old woman hopped into the passenger seat as he started driving away.

Once there, the woman implored the man not to take the vehicle. She offered to drive him anywhere he needed to go.

The suspect tried to convince the woman to get out of the car. She refused, and eventually the suspect decided to just drive her back to the hospital.

The suspect at first surrendered to hospital security, then thought better of it and tried walking away. Police en route to the call found him and he gave up without any resistance. He told police he checked himself out of the hospital after being admitted for pneumonia, and was trying to get back to his vehicle in Purdy.

Police booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of vehicle theft.

Teen reports being shot with airsoft gun

A teenage girl told police that someone fired an airsoft gun at her around 5 p.m. Aug. 14 at Ancich Park. She was not injured.

The girl told police she was loading gear into her car when she felt what she thought was gravel hitting her. She heard what she believed to be an airsoft or pellet gun discharging and ended up being hit by four pellets in her back. The young woman saw a silver four-door sedan driving southbound on Harborview Drive and believed someone inside that car fired at her.

Airsoft guns are typically realistic-looking toys that fire plastic pellets using air pressure.

She had no suspect information.

Suspect thinks it over, then drives away

A man suspected of being in a stolen vehicle sped away from an officer in a Gig Harbor shopping complex around 7 p.m. Aug. 14.

The officer noticed the vehicle, a newer gray Nissan Rogue, because it had clearly illegal window tinting and no license plate. When the officer approached the car, he saw that the VIN number imprinted on the dashboard was covered up, a telltale sign of a possible stolen vehicle.

A bong was in plain sight inside the vehicle, which smelled heavily of methamphetamine. A young adult male sat in the driver’s seat, with “a very large machete tucked underneath his lap.”

When the officer asked the driver to get out of the car, he fidgeted around for several seconds with a tablet on which he’d been playing games when the officer approached. Then he rolled up the window, started the car and drove off at high speed.

The officer, citing a busy parking lot and roads, opted not to pursue the man.