Seattle Press on Line

Hash

By Sara Longley

Sep 19, 2000 -- A University District man emerges from a restaurant on Brooklyn Avenue Northeast at 10:10 a.m. on a Monday morning. He sees a transient, a man he has seen on and off for all the years he has lived in the area. The transient approaches him and, the man reports, sprays him with mace on the side of his face. The attack is unprovoked and unexpected, and the transient man runs away southbound on Brooklyn Avenue Northeast.

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A Crown Hill school is vandalized between 5 p.m. on Saturday and noon on Sunday by unknown suspects who break a total of 42 window panes on the south and west sides of the building. No entry is made...

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Police respond to a call from a Ballard hospital emergency room, where staff want them to take charge of an irrational patient. The patient is making "vague threats." En route, the officers find that the man has an unverifiable warrant for his arrest in Kitsap County, and a long history of dangerous behavior. Upon arrival at the hospital, the officers are told by the doctor that the man said he came to the hospital for medication because he didn't want to "hurt anyone." He proceeded to write "666" on the countertops, which the staff cleaned up. He asked to be allowed to donate all of his skin to burn victims. The doctor says he lunged out of his bed at him, alarming him, and security called the police.

Police officers contact the man and observe injuries on his hands, as if he had repeatedly struck someone or something about a week earlier. They ask the man if he is okay, and he replies, "I plead the 5th," then chuckles. He will not discuss his injuries. He talks about a ghost named "Ra, the 'ghostest with the mostest,'" who crawled out of his mouth while he was sleeping on an electric fence 1,000 years ago, which makes him unpredictable and causes him to chew his tongue.

An officer pats the man down and discovers an ATM card that does not belong to him. The man continues talking, saying that his candy bar is a pistol made for him by "Cool Hand Luke." He seems to believe that a soldier is sitting on an empty stool next to him. He also tries to stick a deodorant wrapper to his forehead, with no success.

An ambulance is called to transport the man to Harborview for mental evaluation. The emergency room staff do not wish to bring charges against the man; they want him to get help. When the ambulance crew arrives, the man calls them by name (not their right names), asking them, "Where have you been?" As he is taken away, he pleads with the officers to "be sure to watch the ice. It's for the kids..." He also mentions Lucifer and Satan and attempts to quote passages from the Book of Revelations concerning the apocalypse.

The officers follow the ambulance to Harborview and fill out the necessary papers for involuntary commitment...

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A police officer sits in his patrol vehicle, observing traffic on Aurora Avenue North near North 80th Street. A vehicle drives by, and the officer observes that the driver appears to be holding a lighter to a pipe and lighting it. The pipe appears to be the type used to smoke marijuana, according to his "past training and experience." He starts after the suspect car and quickly notices that the rear license plate does not have the registration month correctly displayed, only the year. He pulls the car over and, while speaking to the driver, detects the smell of marijuana. He questions the man, who admits that he was smoking marijuana. The man surrenders his pipe, which he has hidden under the drivers' seat. He has no other drug-related evidence in his car. The man cannot come up with proof of insurance, so the officer tickets him. Then the policeman lets him go, as he does not appear to be affected or impaired by the substance he has smoked. The officer forwards the traffic infraction to the city attorney's office to be filed with the marijuana charge...

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A teenager walks home from the Thornton Creek area in the Northgate neighborhood at 3:15 on a Monday afternoon. He is almost home when three other youths drive by in a green car. They stop, get out of the car and approach. The driver of the car tells the victim to empty his pockets. The victim refuses and the driver slaps him, knocking off his glasses. The driver picks up the glasses and again orders the boy to empty his pockets. The victim runs away from the suspects and down the driveway of his neighbor's house. When he reaches the back of the driveway he turns and confronts the suspects. The driver has followed him while the other two stay near the car. The victim slaps the driver's hands away when he tries to grab him. The driver holds the victim's glasses up, shoves him once and then runs back to the car. The three suspects get back in the car and drive away. The victim goes home and a short time later his mother locates the glasses in the street where the suspect vehicle was parked. The glasses are broken beyond repair. The victim states that he had seen the suspects near Thornton Creek earlier that day, but that he had never seen them before that...

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