Seattle Press on Line

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By Sara Longley

May 18, 2000 -- A Greenwood Avenue couple return home on a Friday evening to discover that they have been burglarized. They immediately see that a CD collection is missing, and looking around they discover that $40 is missing from a checkbook on the dining room table. One of the victims steps outside and hears a noise like someone smoking out of a water pipe. Going back inside, he looks out the upstairs window and sees a person crouched behind a parked van in the parking lot. He goes to a neighbor's apartment and brings her to the window to look, and she decides to confront the man. As she approaches, he runs away. She tries to stop him by grabbing his jacket sleeve, but he continues to run, leaving the jacket. The victims find their CDs and other possessions behind the van. The neighbor goes through the pockets of the jacket she is holding and finds the man's ID, keys and wallet. Then she calls 911. Officers arrive and cannot find any signs of forced entry, but they discover that one of the suspect's keys fits the apartment door. The victims are advised to get their manager to change the locks. They tell officers that they have noticed items missing over the last three or four weeks, and they believe the suspect may have been entering the apartment before this incident...

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Two high school boys walk home from a grocery store late on a Friday night. As they walk, a white four-door sedan carrying five young men drives by them and stops. Two of the men get out and approach the boys, asking for their wallets. The victims try to flee, but one is grabbed by the arm and thrown to the ground where he is punched "a few times." The perpetrators make no attempt to take his wallet. The other boy succeeds in running away, and so escapes injury. The suspects get back in the car and drove away, and the victims continue home...

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A man visits a University Way massage parlor on a Saturday afternoon. While he is attended to, his jeans, jacket, keys and watch are stolen by unknown persons. The jacket is later recovered from a "street kid" who says he found it lying on the street...

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A car parked on Roosevelt Way NE is damaged over a Saturday night/Sunday morning 12-hour period. The right front window is shattered by a rock, but apparently nothing is missing...

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A Ballard grocery store is the victim of attempted fraud on a Sunday afternoon when a man tries to use a photocopied gift certificate made out to "Bill" to purchase groceries. The clerk, who has seen a store bulletin regarding fraud attempts, questions the suspect who says his boss gave him the certificate earlier that day. He then leaves the store but an employee follows and gets his license number. The store manager tells the responding police officer that the same man had used an original gift certificate the day before, that one made out to "Tony." An area search turns up no sign of Bill or Tony...

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A Ballard woman calls the police on a Sunday afternoon when she discovers a stack of stolen mail in the possession of her 10-year-old son. The boy admits stealing the mail one day when he was "bored." His mother has returned some of the mail to the neighbors who are at home, and will return the rest later. The boy is crying and promises never to do it again...

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A Greenwood apartment resident looks out his 4th-floor window on a Sunday afternoon and sees the following: four young men walk on N 85th Street near a parking lot. One stays behind at the south end of the parking lot while the other three walk into the lot. They approach a parked car, and after conferring briefly one of them produces a "slim jim" and opens the driver's side door "in about 15 seconds." The other two stand nearby. It takes the man in the car "another 15 seconds" to start the car. His friends get in and they drive back to pick up their friend, then drive away westbound on 85th Street. An area check does not find them...

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At 12:50 a.m. on a Monday morning, the clerk of a Lake City Way novelty/video store is robbed at gunpoint. Two suspects in black ski masks enter the store and point guns at the clerk, who is on the phone with his girlfriend. One of the masked men knocks the phone out of his hand and says "Give me the fucking money!" The clerk immediately places the cash drawer on the counter and steps back with his hands raised. The man orders the clerk into the back room and demands to know "where's the rest of the shit?" He overlooks the small drop safe in the room and asks for the clerk's wallet. The clerk hands over his wallet, and then the suspect strikes him on the leg with the butt of his shotgun, causing the victim to fall down. As the suspect leaves the back room, he tells the victim not to come out. The clerk stays on the floor until he hears the men empty the cash drawer and leave the store, then comes out and calls police. A K-9 unit tracks the suspects only as far as the parking lot...

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A patrol officer on duty in Ballard pulls over a young woman after she commits a minor traffic infraction. When he approaches her car to explain why he has stopped her, he immediately smells a strong odor of marijuana. The driver admits to smoking earlier. She and her passengers are asked to step out of the vehicle, and the officer finds a multi-colored glass pipe with burnt residue in its bowl. The driver is cited for inattention to driving; she and her friends are also cited for narcotics possession...

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A man carrying a long sword boards a Metro bus in Wallingford. He seems nonchalant and does not make any threats as he makes his way to the back of the bus and sits down. The driver of the bus, however, calls police. When the man is contacted by officers, he is surprised and explains that the sword is a stage prop and that he is returning it to a friend's house. Police confiscate the sword for safety reasons after noting that it is made of metal and has a sharp point. The man is identified and released...

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Wednesday, May 3, 7:30 p.m.: A dark deed mars the last Sonics win of the season when a woman's cell phone is stolen from her jacket which she has hung over her seat while attending the game...

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A used car lot in Lake City is robbed of wheels and tires by an unknown suspect who cuts through the fence at the rear of the lot late Sunday/early Monday. The employee who reports the theft to police says the stolen items will only fit a 1993 Ford Mustang Cobra and that the thief must have known exactly where they were kept...

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A Ballard woman is the victim of theft when an unknown person removes the glass from the outside passenger-side mirror of her car on a Sunday night...

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A Wedgwood woman hears a noise in the ground floor of her house at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday night. When she goes downstairs to investigate she finds nothing amiss; however the following morning she discovers that one of her lawn chairs has been positioned beneath the kitchen window and the window screen has been removed...

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