Community Police & Fire

Gig Harbor police blotter: A Lego theft ring?

Editor’s note: The following items were written based on information in Gig Harbor Police reports. 

Gig Harbor Police were called to Target on the afternoon of April 16 for a report of a possible shoplifting.

Responding officers found two suspects, whom they believed to be working in tandem. Both men had shopping carts full of “high-priced Lego toys” and other items. In his report, one of the officers noted that the carts contained goods that are “high-value and commonly stolen.”

The two suspects — a Vashon Island man and a Tacoma man — both abandoned their shopping carts and left the store when they saw the officers. However, both also were found to have outstanding warrants and were arrested.

The men were trespassed from the store, meaning if they return there they could be arrested on suspicion of burglary. Both suspects said they had recently ingested the drug fentanyl and they were evaluated at St. Anthony’s Hospital before being booked into the Pierce County Jail.

I got the car from a lone ‘Wolf’

A Gig Harbor Police officer patrolling the parking lot of Target late on April 15 noticed a blue Ford Ranger, backed into a parking stall, with no license plates.

An obviously forged three-day trip permit was taped to the rear window of the pickup. The officer wrote in his report that “I could tell the permit was fake, because it was printed on normal printer paper, not the card stock used at DOL.” The officer looked up the VIN number, visible through the windshield, and confirmed the vehicle had been reported stolen in Tacoma.

The driver of the Ranger soon walked out of the store, pushing a cart filled with $980 worth of unpaid merchandise. When she noticed officers standing next to the Ranger, she pretended she hadn’t been walking toward the vehicle. But officers saw through her ruse.

The Tacoma resident told the officers she had been given the vehicle, free of charge, by someone she knew only as “Wolf,” who works as a traveling mechanic. If her previous stories are to be believed, Wolf is generous with his cars: She told the same tale to officers in another jurisdiction when she was previously caught in possession of a stolen vehicle.

She was arrested on suspicion of possession of a stolen motor vehicle, theft and for multiple previous arrest warrants.

Not-very-observant suspect escapes

A Gig Harbor Police officer driving through the parking lot of the Olympic Village shopping center on the evening of April 17 became suspicious when he saw a silver Dodge Intrepid backed into a parking stall with its brake lights engaged. A check of the license plate number revealed that the vehicle had been stolen in Puyallup.

The officer parked in front of the Intrepid and placed a “stop stick” before a front tire. A stop stick will pop the tire if it is driven over.

The male driver inside the vehicle was staring at his phone the whole time and somehow did not notice the officer doing this. The officer looked inside the vehicle and noticed that the ignition had been tampered with and paraphernalia for heroin and fentanyl was strewn about the vehicle.

When the officer contacted the driver, he first attempted to drive forward before finally seeing the patrol car parked there. The suspect was able to reverse out of the parking stall and was last seen westbound on Highway 16.