Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 5, May 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

Graveyard shift:

On Wednesday, April 14 at 11:30 p.m., a police officer noticed a man walking near Northgate Way and Meridian Avenue N. The man was carrying a shovel and appeared to be intoxicated. The officer asked the man where he was going.

"Do you have any money?" The man replied. Then he put his shovel down and continued on his way.

The officer got out of his car and put the shovel in the back. Then he approached the man again. The man mentioned that he was hearing voices and then added that he was an "unemployed grave-digger" and was heading to the graveyard.

(In actuality, he appeared to be headed to 7-11.)

The officer told the man that he was placing the shovel into evidence, as people might be frightened if they saw him carrying it around the city.

Bad spelling, worse check:

On the same night, at approximately 11:40 p.m., another officer reported to a check-cashing business in the University District to investigate a possible fraud.

When he arrived, the officer identified the suspect (a man in his late 40s) who immediately said, "I didn't know the check was bad."

The employee who had called 911 said she was suspicious of the check because it was made of flimsy paper and contained "obvious misspellings." She had called the alleged check writer, who told her that he'd thrown some checks into a dumpster the previous day.

When asked if he'd gotten the check from a dumpster, the suspect said he'd gotten it from "Dan, you know the guy with the dog."

The suspect was arrested and booked into King County Jail.

Thrown out with his clothes:

On Thursday, April 15, around 3 a.m., officers reported to the scene of a domestic disturbance in Broadview. The woman who reported the incident said that her boyfriend was refusing to leave her home, and that he had thrown her purse and "pushed" her.

When the officers arrived they found the boyfriend, a man in his 20s, pulling out of the driveway. A woman of approximately the same age was throwing clothes out of a second-story window. The boyfriend stopped and told the officers that his girlfriend was "pissed off" and had thrown him out with his clothes.

The officers then contacted the woman who said her boyfriend is jealous because of her job as a waitress at a local strip club. They had gotten into an argument when she returned home from work that evening, and her boyfriend had thrown the contents of her purse on the floor. She added that "he disrespected me" and she wasn't going to stand for it. She also told police that there had been no pushing.

As their investigation progressed, the officers noticed that the woman became friendly to her boyfriend again and even offered him cigarettes. Despite this, the man gathered his wardrobe and left.

Glass crashed couple abashed?

At 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, a man and woman entered a Crown Hill convenience store and purchased alcohol.

While they were shopping, the clerk heard some glass break in the back of the store.

After the couple left, he went back to check it out and discovered that an entire cooler door had been broken out.

The clerk rushed outside in time to see the couple's car pulling out and wrote down the license plate.

Upon seeing the clerk do this, a third person who was driving the car (a woman in her 20s) stopped the vehicle.

The couple jumped out and fled on foot.

The driver waited for the police for a short while but eventually left.

Later, when contacted at her residence, the driver told the police the other woman's name but said she didn't know the man.

Officers tried to contact the woman who had been in the store to see what she knew about the broken door, but she wasn't home.

Chatty bandits:

On April 14 around 2 p.m., two men in their 20s walked into a Haller Lake home through a door that had been left open for ventilation. They greeted a male resident and told him that they were checking windows in the neighborhood for damage caused by kids shooting BB guns.

While the first suspect spoke with the man, the second suspect walked around the home, eventually encountering a female resident, a woman in her 70s. The second suspect told the woman that he knew an ex-neighbor of her's.

The suspects stayed only a few minutes and left on foot.

Later, the victims noticed that several drawers had been opened and that the woman's wallet was missing from her purse.

North Seattle pets threatened:

It seems that April was a time of conflict between high-spirited pets and the neighbors who are annoyed by them.

On Monday, April 12, a man returned to his Licton Springs home around 10 p.m. to find a note taped to his door which read, "you need to stop your dog from barking the morning before I kill it."

The man's wife reported the incident to the police on April 14, saying that although they do have two dogs, no one has ever complained about barking.

She added that she and her husband know their immediate neighbors on either side, and neither of them would write such a note.

That same day, a woman in Wedgwood was contacted at her home by a neighbor at approximately 11:15 a.m. The neighbor accused the woman's cats of killing birds in his yard, and said that if it didn't stop he was going to shoot the kitties with his BB gun.

The victim told police where and when they could reach the neighbor and added that she is not the only one in the neighborhood who has cats.