Community Police & Fire

Police arrest armed robbery suspect following collision in downtown Gig Harbor

Gig Harbor Police arrested a suspect in an armed robbery that occurred late Friday, March 3, on Pioneer Way.

The highly visible incident involved a gun, a collision, a chase, at least two stolen vehicles and a search for suspects in the Canterwood neighborhood, according to a Gig Harbor Police Department social media post.

Robbery at gunpoint

According to police, two males robbed a convenience store on the 7100 block of Pioneer Way at gunpoint at about 9 p.m. Friday. They got into a vehicle with two other people and fled down Grandview Street.

A Gig Harbor officer attempted to stop the fleeing vehicle. Instead, it sped off and crashed into a parked car and a building on the 3000 block of Harborview Drive.

All four people in the car ran. Officers caught one, a male, nearby. They caught up to another, a female, when she stopped at a nearby house to ask for help for an injured hand.

Officers saw a handgun and the stolen money inside the crashed car, which had previously been reported stolen.

After reviewing surveilance footage from the convenience store, officers believed that the male they had arrested was the gunman in the robbery. The male refused to provide any identification, but officers believed him to be a juvenile. Police booked him into the Remann Hall Juvenile Detention Center in Tacoma.

Officers had no evidence that the female was involved in the robbery. They took her to her home in Tacoma.

Gig Harbor Police photo of the scene in downtown Gig Harbor on Friday, March 3.

Two suspects fled in woods

Gig Harbor officers couldn’t immediately locate the other two people who ran from the crashed vehicle. But a few hours later, a Gig Harbor officer saw a car driving away from a Borgen Boulevard apartment complex, at a high rate of speed with no lights on.

One of the people in that car matched the description of a suspect in the robbery. Under this circumstance, state law allows officers to chase the fleeing vehicle, and they did.

The car, which also had been stolen, crashed and suspects fled into the woods nearby. Officers were unable to locate the two suspects.

Gig Harbor Now typically does not identify juvenile criminal suspects.