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By Sara Longley

Aug 28, 2001 -- A Phinney Ridge man is in the process of moving out of Seattle. He spends a Saturday morning moving furniture onto the parking strip in front of his house on 3rd Avenue NW, then takes a break. While he is inside his house, he falls asleep. He awakes later to the sound of voices outside. One asks another what is for sale. The man rushes outside and surprises two strangers, a man and a woman, loading pieces of his furniture into a car. The next person he sees is a former business partner, the owner of the car, who runs up yelling about the furniture. The pieces in question are antiques that once belonged to the business partner’s mother. The pair loading furniture depart hastily on foot, and the victim’s former associate gets into his car and drives away with several items of furniture. The victim calls the police to report the robbery, but when officers arrive they tell him that by leaving his furniture on the parking strip he created the impression that they were free for the taking. They also inform him that he must produce receipts to prove ownership of the furniture taken by his former partner…

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A man leaves his mathematics textbook unattended in a Ballard hospital at 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday. When he returns, it is gone…

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An officer in a marked patrol car is working in Greenwood at noon on a Friday when he spots a car parked too close to the intersection of N 100th Street and Greenwood Avenue. Looking closer he sees two things: first, that the car is occupied by a male driver and a female passenger; second, that the license plate bears a registration tab saying "August," but is listed in his computer as having expired in July. The officer activates his lights and approaches the car, but the driver suddenly accelerates away. He pretends to stop at N 101st Street and 2nd Avenue N, but again lunges away as the patrol car nears. By this time, the officer has his emergency lights on and his siren blaring, but the driver speeds through the stop sign at 3rd Avenue N, almost colliding with traffic as he turns north. He turns right again onto Holman Road, and then unsuccessfully attempts a U-turn before turning onto N 103rd Street. In the parking lot of a bowling alley, the suspect runs from his car and through the business from one end to the other, exiting the bowling alley on the south side and jumping over a ledge into thorn bushes. The officer gives chase as far as the ledge, but does not follow the suspect’s plunge into the bushes, and the man gets away. The officer returns to the parking lot, where he finds that the female passenger has also fled the scene. He finds some items of clothing he believes to be hers in the front seat of the car. He also finds a wallet containing identification matching the suspect’s appearance. The car is impounded and a warrant is issued for the suspect…

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A Lake City man reports that, sometime between 9:30 p.m. on a Wednesday and 7 a.m. on a Thursday, unknown thieves made off with his city-issued garbage can full of trash…

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A University District man leaves his house at 11 a.m. on a Saturday, having watched the morning cartoons on Channel 4. When he returns at 12:25 p.m., he finds that his TV channel has been changed to Channel 5. He knows he did not make the change himself because it was done using the television set changer rather than the VCR. He reports to police that his deadbolt was locked securely and nothing appears to be missing; however, he is very disturbed that somebody would break into his house to watch TV…

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A man drives along N 50th Street toward the Aurora Avenue N underpass at Woodland Park on a Saturday at midnight. The car in front of him is slow, and the man sees that it is weaving noticeably. He continues behind the car up Phinney Avenue until they near 65th Street, and then he cuts around it into the left turn lane. The other car turns left behind him and begins tailgate him, so he taps his brakes. This seems to anger the previously slow driver, who follows the man as he tries to elude the chase. The victim drives south to Fremont, up 8th Avenue NW, down 3rd Avenue NW and up Greenwood again. Finally, while the victim is stopped for traffic on N 105th Street, a passenger gets out of the suspect car, comes over and hits the victim’s car twice, breaking the drivers’ side mirror and smashing the drivers’ side rear window. The passenger gets back into the suspect car and they drive away. The victim drives from there to the North Seattle Precinct office to report the incident. He provides police with a detailed description and license number of the car, an older silver four-door Mercedes sedan. He tells police that the car contained five or six young men. Police contact the registered owner, a man in his 60s who is uncooperative even after they inform him of the incident…

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