Seattle Press on Line

Hash

By Sara Longley

Nov 21, 2001 -- A man shops in a music store on Northgate Way on a Friday afternoon. A store employee sees him remove a security tag from a Phish CD and put the CD in his jacket pocket. He then walks out of the store past the cashiers without paying. As he exits, she confronts him. He produces the CD. When police arrive, he gives officers his correct name and address, but with the store employee he used an alias. He is patted down, and a three-inch knife is found in his jacket. The officers run his name through the database, and it turns out that the man is a violent felony offender. He is arrested on the spot, because the terms of his release state that he is not to possess a deadly weapon. He also has several cans of spray paint and more than 100 paint markers with him. He tells officers he does "a lot of graffiti, but only in legal areas."...

* * *

A woman stands in line to see a teller at a Greenwood bank branch on a Friday at 12:35 p.m. She has $200 in cash in her hand, along with her keys and other items. She rearranges her keys, and the cash falls to the floor without her noticing. The person in line behind her bends down, straightens up and then leaves the bank. The woman thinks nothing of it until she reaches the teller and discovers her money is missing. She concludes that the person who left must have picked it up. She remembers that the suspect was holding a bag with the bank's logo on it, and believes that they may be a regular customer. She hopes bank personnel will be able to identify the suspect from security tapes...

* * *

A woman bicycles at Green Lake with her children on a Friday morning. They decide to stop at a coffee shop for a drink. At the coffee shop, a stranger comes up to the woman and says, "I know you want me to have sex with your two kids, but I won't unless you make me." The victim tells police that the suspect was also riding a bike and kept taking his helmet off and putting it back on. She says she can identify him if she sees him again...

* * *

A passerby at Meadowbrook Community Center sees several young people in the woods and smells beer, so he calls police. Officers arrive shortly and check the area. They see a young person climb over a fence and start to help another person over. The second person, who is apprehended at the scene, has a black object in his hands, which the officer recognizes as a keg tap. The boy drops it to the ground. The officer asks him what it is, and he replies, "nothing." The officer can smell beer on the boy's breath, and observes that the front of his pants is soaked in beer. He turns out to be 16 years old and is arrested for being a minor in possession of alcohol. In the pat-down search, the officer discovers two bags of marijuana and a large wad of cash in one of his pockets. When he is asked where he got the cash, he says he was collecting for the keg. When asked if he had been drinking, he says, "only a few." His eyes are bloodshot and watery. He is transported to the North Precinct, where he is released to his father's custody after being fingerprinted and photographed...

* * *

A woman is in front of her University District apartment at midnight on a Wednesday, unloading her car. She sets her wallet down and a man picks it up and runs. A witness yells at the man, and the woman hears and chases him. She recovers her wallet, but not her ATM card. The suspect is able to make a cash withdrawal from her account because her PIN number was with the card...

* * *

A man returns to his Roosevelt home at 4 p.m. on a Thursday to find his American flag, which he had displayed on his porch with lights and a frame, has been stolen...

* * *

Police are called to a possible burglary in progress in the Wedgwood neighborhood. The caller says he saw a man break a window and then run behind the house to the east. A neighbor contacts the officers as they arrive and tells them she just heard someone run past her kitchen window. The owner of the house in question arrives, and police enter using his key. The suspect is gone. It does not appear that the suspect actually entered the house, and the victim states that nothing is missing. He is given an incident number and his son secures the broken window...

* * *

A woman parks her car outside her mother-in-law's house in Lake City at 3 p.m. on a Thursday. When she winds up her visit shortly after 9 p.m., she discovers that the window on the passenger side of her car is smashed and the door frame is bent. The prize the prowler stole from the car was a breast pump with two bottles of fresh milk. The woman's loss totals $850...

* * *

An employee of a Ballard temporary employment agency discovers a case of fraud on a Friday in early November. A person who was placed by the agency at a Lake City Way business in September has been filing false work orders and forging the business' manager's name in order to collect wages. He was able to repeat the process every day, filling in hours "worked," forging the manager's signature and checking the box on the form indicating he was wanted for more work the following day. Over a six-week period, he was paid approximately $3,500 in cash by the temp agency. The Lake City business' manager says the man has not worked there since September, nor was he ever requested to return...

* * *

A private tow company arrives at a Brooklyn Avenue location to tow a vehicle at 2:50 p.m. on a Friday. The tow truck driver hesitates when he discovers a note, written on a "porn picture," posted on the drivers' side front window. The note states that the car is booby-trapped. He looks inside and sees what may be an explosive device mounted on the dash and steering wheel. At this point, he calls the police. Officers respond to the location and they, too, conclude that the potential for an explosion is credible. The bomb squad is called, and performs a "disable/destroy" procedure. During the process, they discover that the device was not, in fact, an explosive. The incident report does not state how much of the vehicle was disabled or destroyed...

* * *

A man walks around inside a North Aurora grocery store. A security employee sees him put a package of Gulf prawns inside his jacket, then a 22-ounce Sapporo beer. The security man observes while the man then walks out past the checkout stands without paying. Outside the store, he contacts the suspect and identifies himself as store security, but the man immediately swings an elbow at him, striking him on the side of the head. Then he attempts to flee. The security man is able to grab him and pull him to the ground after being dragged several feet. Another witness runs outside and assists the security guard in subduing the suspect. When police arrive, one witness tells officers she thinks the store's employees used excessive force against the man. The suspect says that the security guard never identified himself as such, so he thought a stranger was assaulting him for no reason. He says that was why he ran away, though he admits to stealing the beer and prawns...

* * *

A woman waits for the bus at 45th and Latona Avenue N, when a man walks up to her and grabs her purse from where it is sitting on the ground. She reports that there was about $25 cash, some personal papers and a credit card in it, and she will cancel the card as soon as she gets home...

Reader Comments

Discuss this article in the forums!

No comments yet!