Community Police & Fire
Gig Harbor Police Blotter: Officer commandeers car during chase through parking lot
Editor’s note: The Blotter is written based on information provided by Gig Harbor Police and Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One.
A Gig Harbor officer responding to a suspicious vehicle complaint ended up deploying his Taser, drawing his weapon and commandeering a car before finally arresting a suspect around 6 p.m. July 29 in a parking lot on Point Fosdick Drive.
A passer-by called 911 to report the car, a gray Dodge Charger. The caller suspected it was connected to a series of vehicle thefts in Tacoma.
That suspicion turned out to be unfounded. But the officer who checked on the car noticed an abundance of merchandise inside. The items were not in bags and had store tags on them, an obvious indication of possible shoplifting.
The officer placed a “piranha stop” in front of a tire. The device would pop the tire if the car tries to drive away with it in place.
When a man and a woman walked out of a nearby store, an employee stopped them to retrieve stolen merchandise. The officer tried to speak with them, but they ran for the car.
The officer wrote that he “was concerned there may be a weapon in the vehicle that (the male suspect) was going for,” so he fired his Taser at the suspect. The shot missed, and the officer drew his gun.
The male suspect got in the Charger and drove off, but he didn’t get far. The piranha stop popped a tire, and the car careened into a light pole. The suspect ran and the officer pursued on foot, hurdling a retaining wall at one point.
The suspect outpaced the officer, but a second officer gave chase. The first officer didn’t think he could catch up, so he ordered a passer-by to drive him back to his patrol car. While en route, the officer spotted the suspect, jumped out of the car and apprehended him.
Officers found no weapons when they searched the suspect. A tow truck driver called to impound the damaged Charger found an airsoft gun in the trunk.
Medics took the suspect, a 37-year-old Seattle man, to St. Anthony Hospital for evaluation. He had no visible injuries, but had been in a collision when the officer’s patrol car nudged the rear bumper of the Charger, and acted highly erratically during the encounter.
A check of records revealed that the 37-year-old was the subject of five arrest warrants.
Witnesses provided a possible location of the female suspect. But the officer said they did not have the resources to pursue her at the same time they were dealing with the male suspect.
The following day, an officer took the suspect from the hospital to the Kitsap County Jail for “numerous misdemeanor charges.”
‘Kissy face’ fails to de-escalate confrontation
A Gig Harbor man got crabby over the location of a crab line on July 30, and pushing and shoving ensued.
A Lake Stevens man told police that he and a friend were crabbing at Jerisich Dock around 9 p.m. The Gig Harbor man told them they weren’t allowed to crab fish there and moved their line out of his way. The two argued briefly before separating. The Lake Stevens man told police the other man appeared intoxicated.
A little later, the Lake Stevens man and his friend walked across the street to have a drink at a local bar. The 48-year-old Gig Harbor man saw them and crossed the street to renew the confrontation.
The Gig Harbor man invaded the other man’s personal space during the second argument. The 36-year-old Lake Stevens man made what the officer described as a “kissy face” to the other man, which antagonized him further. The Gig Harbor man shoved the Lake Steens man, causing him to stumble backwards.
Nobody reported any injuries. The officer learned the identity of the Gig Harbor man and forwarded a copy of the report to city prosecutors for review of possible charges.
Wrong way through the drive-through
McDonalds employees asked for police to help remove an apparently intoxicated man who had driven his car the wrong way into a McDonald’s drive-through and was couldn’t figure out how to back it out.
The responding officer noted that the vehicle matched the description of one that was seen driving in the wrong lane of traffic in Dupont earlier the same evening.
McDonald’s employees told the officer it was the second time the 43-year-old Tacoma man drove the car into the drive-through the wrong way. The first time, he ended up parking the car on a lawn. The second time, he proved unequal to the task of backing up out of the drive-through, even with employees trying to help.
He eventually figured it out, but ignored the officer’s command to park the car in the McDonald’s parking lot. Instead, he drove across the street and parked outside another business. The suspect went on to tell the officer, among many other things, “I can’t drive sober.”
During processing for DUI and the resulting drive to the Kitsap County jail, the suspect was argumentative, profane and repeatedly threatened officers. At one point, he tried to bite his way through a seat belt in an officer’s car, breaking a tooth. An officer took the man to the Kitsap County Jail, where he threatened and berated corrections officers.