Community Police & Fire

Gig Harbor Police Blotter: Woman injured self by head-butting partition, officers say

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

A 56-year-old Port Orchard woman ended up in the hospital on Jan. 7 after, according to a report from officers, she head-butted the cage separating the rear from the front seat of an officer’s patrol vehicle.

Officers contacted the woman several times that evening about domestic disturbances at a family member’s residence on Stinson Avenue. Family members told officers they believed the woman was drunk or high and was experiencing a mental health crisis.

Officers eventually attempted to arrest the woman for an outstanding warrant from Kitsap County. They located her on the Cushman Trail. According to officers’ reports, she resisted their efforts to handcuff her.

One officer wrote that he placed the woman in a “bear hug” and “lowered her to the ground.” While she tried to kick the officer, another placed handcuffs on her. “During the incident, (the woman) urinated and defecated on herself,” according to the report.

One officer described using a “pain compliance technique” — placing his fingers under her jaw — to make her stand up. Eventually, they got her in the car and drove her to the Kitsap County jail in Port Orchard. Officers described her kicking the partition cage during the drive.

When they arrived, they noticed she had a head wound, which officers said they had not previously noticed because her hair covered her face. Officers surmised that she must have head-butted the cage instead of kicking it.

Officers took her to St. Anthony Hospital for treatment.

Suspicious subject claims he’s a ‘foreign sovereign national’

A man sitting in a vehicle in a parking lot in the Uptown shopping complex told officers that they had no jurisdiction over him, because he was a foreign sovereign national.

A store manager called law enforcement because the same man insisted on throwing peanuts out the car window. The manager asked him to stop, and perhaps go to a park to feed the birds. He told her she was violating his rights and that she could not ask him to do anything because he was not a citizen.

When a maintenance employee came out to sweep up the peanut shells, the man insisted he could not do so. The man seemed to believe that the peanut shells were his property, since he purchased them.

Officers responded to ask the man to leave. That’s when he made his “foreign sovereign national”
argument, even handing over a document he claimed exempted him from local laws. Nonetheless, the 29-year-old was the subject of outstanding arrest warrants. Officers arrested him, trespassed him from the store and took him to the Kitsap County jail.

Shoplifter returns stolen items when officers ask

After Gig Harbor officers identified a shoplifting suspect from store security footage, they called him and promised not to take him to jail if he returned the items. He agreed.

The shoplifting occurred Jan. 3 at a store on Hunt Street. The suspect took a pair of shoes and bolt cutters. The store turned over an internal report and security footage, which another officer used to identify the 23-year-old suspect.

The investigating officer called him and made his pitch: Return the merchandise and you won’t be taken to jail. The suspect was surprisingly amenable to the proposal. He was not jailed, but he was arrested and given a court date. He told the officer he stole the items because he is homeless and hoped to make money by selling the purloined items.