Community Police & Fire
Gig Harbor Police Blotter | Fake 911 call helps man with arrest warrants evade police
Editor’s note: The Blotter is written based on information provided by Gig Harbor Police , Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office.
Someone called 911 around 7:45 p.m. Aug. 28 to report a scary kidnapping outside the YMCA on Harbor Hill Drive. Officers concluded that the kidnapping never happened, and that someone made the 911 call to stop them from apprehending an arrest warrant subject.
Officers had located a man in a store parking lot along Burnham Drive who had King County arrest warrants for burglary, theft and identity theft. As they were speaking with him, dispatch told them about a kidnapping in progress at the nearby YMCA.
Since an in-progress kidnapping is a very high-priority call, officers left the warrant subject and raced over to the YMCA.
The 911 caller, who identified himself first as Joe and then as Jake, told a tall tale about a suspect waving a gun and kidnapping a woman and baby at the YMCA. Officers responded, but nobody at the Y had seen anything. Surveillance footage showed nothing of the sort.
Officers later concluded that someone associated with the warrant suspect must have called 911 to report the bogus kidnapping, knowing officers would have to stop what they were doing to respond. South Sound 911 confirmed that the 911 call came from the vicinity of the parking lot where officers found the warrant subject.
They’d rather go to the hospital than to jail
A 45-year-old Puyallup woman, whom police suspected of shoplifting, told officers she had consumed at least 20 fentanyl pills just before they spoke with her on July 9 at a department store on 51st Avenue.
Officers called paramedics to the scene, who recommended that she go to the hospital. But after the officer issued her a citation and released her to paramedics, the 45-year-old jumped out of the ambulance and ran away. Officers could not locate her.
It seems to be a common tactic among criminal suspects.
• On Aug. 12 at a grocery store on Point Fosdick Drive, a 35-year-old Puyallup man with an outstanding warrant told officers he had ingested cocaine and Xanax. Officers noted that in a previous incident this year, the same suspect complained of chest pains and got a ride to the hospital instead of jail. This time, officers took him to St. Anthony, where medical staff evaluated him. Then officers came back to take the suspect to jail.
• On Aug. 19, a 26-year-old Gig Harbor man waited until officers got him to the Kitsap County Jail before claiming he had swallowed a whole bag of fentanyl. An officer took him to St. Anthony, waited for him to be medically cleared, then took him back to the jail in Port Orchard.
• On Aug. 2, a shoplifting suspect told a Gig Harbor officer who was driving him to the jail that his heart was racing. The suspect claimed he had ingested 2 grams of cocaine. Medics found no evidence of any medical problems, but recommended a trip to the hospital to be on the safe side.
In the case of the 45-year-old woman at Target, officers later found 23 fentanyl pills in the car she had been in. She also had four arrest warrants, for charges ranging from vehicle prowling to obstructing law enforcement, and likely would have been headed for jail.
Assault arrest for woman who spat on medical technician
Police arrested a 65-year-old Bremerton woman on suspicion of assault after she allegedly spat in the face of an emergency room technician at St. Anthony Hospital on Aug. 16.
The technician told police the woman became angry after hospital employees seized drugs and paraphernalia from her purse. Hospital policy requires them to do so, the technician told police.
The 65-year-old came to the hospital complaining of chest pains. Medical staff cataloguing her belongings found several pipes, marijuana and a vial with a “white substance.”
Police took the woman to the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of third-degree assault.
Officer administers Narcan on suspect
A Gig Harbor police officer administered Narcan to a 26-year-old shoplifting suspect who lost consciousness in the back seat of a patrol car on Aug. 10.
Security at a store on 51st Avenue spotted the suspect and a partner stealing items around 6 p.m. Officers detained the suspects and recovered nearly $600 worth of merchandise.
While officers investigated, one of the suspects — a 26-year-old woman — passed out in an officer’s car. Though the officer noted that the suspect’s pulse and heart rate were normal, repeated attempts to wake her were unsuccessful. She also urinated in the backseat of the patrol car.
Even after the officer administered the Narcan, the woman did not wake up. Narcan is a medicine that can rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One took her to St. Anthony. When the officer went to the hospital to cite the woman, she vomited in the bed.