Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 3, March 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

Cops 'N Robbers

By LEAH WEATHERSBY

Two men's best friend:

Just after 9 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 13, a middle-aged man was at a Laurelhurst coffee shop. He had his dog, a German-mix breed, tied up outside. While he was having coffee, another man (in his 30s) walked up, untied the dog, put it in his blue Chevrolet car and drove off. A witness got the second man's license plate number and the police were able to locate him a few miles away. The second man and another witness were detained until officers arrived with the first man.

But what seemed like a simple theft case got murkier. As it turned out, both men had known each other for years and both claimed ownership of the dog. The dog responded to both men.

The second man, who had taken the dog from the coffee shop earlier that day, said the dog had been stolen from him back in July, although he hadn't reported it until Aug. 21. He had purchased tags for the dog that same day. But the first man said that the dog was implanted with a chip that indicated he was the owner. According to Animal Control, the chip had also been implanted on Aug. 21.

However, the second man then countered with a rabies vaccination tag from July 2003. The veterinarian confirmed that the second man brought the dog in for his shot.

Two more witnesses showed up, one a man who told police that he had given the dog to the second man (the one who had taken the dog from the coffee shop) as a gift when the dog was just a puppy.

The first man refused to say how the dog had come into his possession.

Since the second man had the earliest documentation showing that he had the dog, the police ended up leaving the coveted pooch in his custody.

Hasta la vista, baby:

At about 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10, a Northgate-area resident got a strange call. It was a recording of Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice saying "Game over," and then some pounding sounds. Two more calls with recorded messages in the same voice followed. The woman thought the calls might be coming from a male ex-friend. She told police she was afraid for her safety and wasn't sure what the recording of the movie actor/California governor was supposed to mean.

Tenant from hell:

In November, 2003, a man in his 20s brought a fixer-upper house in Greenwood. He decided to rent it out until he could remodel it. A woman in her early 20s filed a rental application and paid first and last month's rent.

However, when the man called the employer listed on the woman's rental application for a reference, he was told that she no longer worked there. When he confronted the woman, she said she lied because she was ashamed of her real job as an exotic dancer.

Though skeptical, the man let the woman move in. By January, she was late with the rent. He went by the house looking for the woman and found that the door had been kicked in. He decided not to go inside.

A short while later, the woman showed up at the landlord's family restaurant to pay rent. Asked what happened to the door, she said it was the work of some bail bondsmen who were looking for someone named "Tony." The landlord remembered that "Tony" was the name of a tenant who occupied the house before it was sold, and he felt sorry for the woman.

But the woman's story took on another dimension when landlord contacted the bail bond company about getting the door fixed. They told the landlord that while at his rental house they had seen narcotics strewn about, an elaborate camera system for monitoring movement outside the building, a police scanner and guns. The landlord reported this to the Seattle Police Department's Narcotics Unit.

February rolled around and the rent was late again. Unsurprisingly, the landlord was afraid to go to the house and collect it. He sent an eviction notice via certified mail.

Driving by the house on Feb. 8, the landlord saw a man boarding up one of his windows, apparently at the instruction of the woman's boyfriend. The landlord called the house and told a man who answered the phone that if they weren't out in three days, the sheriff would evict them.

Though a ruse, the threat worked. When the landlord returned to the property on Feb. 11, he found the house nearly empty. The few items that remained, including a police scanner and a hollow point bullet from the front yard, were placed into evidence.

Crossing the line:

At 1:16 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12, a man in his early 40s was walking in a crosswalk at the intersection of NE 85th Street and 35th Avenue NE, when he says he was nearly hit by a white company van. The pedestrian and the driver exchanged some unpleasant words.

The pedestrian then returned to his workplace nearby, thinking the incident was over.

He was wrong.

The driver got out of his van and followed him to the business where he reportedly yelled, "I'll kick your ass."

The victim started to walk towards the van to get the license plate number. The suspect followed, yelling, "I'm coming back to break out all the windows." Then the suspect got in his vehicle and drove of, hurling a chrome nut at one of the windows as he went.

The victim went back to work. Remembering the writing on the side of the van, he decided to call the company. An employee said the suspect's description matched the owner of the company, and the owner would have been driving that van.

Capon caper:

On Feb. 10, a man returned to his Fremont home after work and discovered that he had been robbed. Half a leftover chicken was missing from his refrigerator, and his microwave had been used. The man called police the next day and told them he suspected some employees of an appliance company who had installed a water heater in his home of the theft. He said he wanted the incident documented.