Community Police & Fire

Gig Harbor police blotter: DUI suspect gets aggressive with EMTs

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

Gig Harbor Police officers detained a man after he became aggressive toward Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One EMTs who were attempting to evaluate him on April 9. 

An officer was flagged down on Stinson Drive by a passer-by who reported that a male had run in front of her vehicle on Rosedale Street. A second person called 911 to report a similar incident.

The officer found the man kneeling in the roadway on Rosedale near Mitts Lane. The subject asked responding officers to tase him. Officers smelled alcohol on his breath and observed he may have been experiencing some sort of mental health crisis.

EMTs were called to evaluate the man. He became aggressive with them, pushing and shoving them and attempting to get inside the ambulance. He was handcuffed by police after a brief struggle.

The same subject was found to have abandoned a vehicle on Highway 16, which had been impounded by the Washington State Patrol. He was arrested by state troopers on suspicion of DUI.

A temporary get-away

Two suspects drove a possibly stolen vehicle at a Gig Harbor Police officer before hopping a curb and hitting another vehicle and a tree early on April 2 at a business on Point Fosdick Drive.

The officer was responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle – a red pickup pulling a trailer with no license plates that was dragging chains. The officer located the vehicle at the business on Point Fosdick.

“The male then drove toward me,” the officer wrote in his report. “I activated my emergency lights. The male drove over the curb, colliding with a van in the parking lot. The male drove over a tree and back onto the roadway.”

The pickup accelerated through a red light and fled. The officer, citing state law and department policy, declined to pursue it.

Later that morning, employees at the business reported catalytic converters had been stolen from two customers’ vehicles, including the damaged van.

Two suspects were arrested several days later for outstanding warrants after being found inside another stolen vehicle. The arresting officer believed them to be the suspects from the red pickup, but they denied it.

Suspect arrested; dog goes free

Gig Harbor Police officers recovered a stolen Ford F-350 pickup after a relative of the vehicle’s legitimate owner called 911 on March 31 to say she had found the vehicle in the parking lot of Target.

Two suspects were contacted: A female who told police she didn’t know the vehicle was stolen and a male, who officers were careful about approaching because he had a “large pit bull dog” with him.

On questioning, the male suspect admitted that he suspected the vehicle was stolen because he had obtained it from someone who is a known vehicle thief … and because he acquired it in exchange for about $2,500 worth of methamphetamine.

The male suspect was booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of possession of a stolen motor vehicle. The female suspect was released, along with the pit bull. The vehicle was impounded until evidence could be gathered, then released to its owner.