Seattle Press on Line

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By Sara Longley

Jul 04, 2002 -- A Wallingford resident calls 911 at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday to report that a mental or drugged man is in front of her house yelling, grunting and dancing. Police arrive to speak to the man, and when he sees them he immediately throws the contents of his pockets to the ground and screams out his name and date of birth. The man is jumpy and agitated, speaking incoherently. The officers find his picture identification in his backpack. An outstanding warrant from California is found, and the suspect is arrested. The officers cuff him, because his outbursts are unpredictable. They transport him to Harborview for a toxicology screen because he is sweating profusely and his pupils are shrunk to pinpoints. He admits to Harborview staff that he used a combination of cocaine and heroin earlier in the day...

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A West Seattle woman reports that a man who did odd jobs for her has stolen her cell phone. She says the man does general maintenance around her house, and she has allowed him to use her phone in the past. One Saturday, he took the phone with him when he finished work. A day later, the woman called her phone and he answered, and she asked him to bring the phone back. He refused, and has not answered calls from her since then. She cancels her phone service...

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At bar closing time on a Thursday, officers are monitoring the patrons dispersing from a University Way bar. The security staff is clearing the sidewalk of people, but one man refuses to move. The officers approach and identify themselves as police officers, but the man still won't budge. He says his ride is picking him up and he wants to wait right there. One of the officers tells him he can wait across the street just as easily, but the man says he would rather take it to court. As a crowd gathers, the officers order him to move several more times but he refuses. Eventually the officers arrest him for obstruction. He becomes verbally abusive and is taken to jail...

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Children at summer camp at Camp Long in West Seattle are in their cabin at 10 a.m. on a Saturday when a strange woman knocks on the door. She forces her way into the cabin, but the youngsters ask her to leave and she does. A short while later, the woman who rented the cabins for the children finds the stranger in a different cabin looking around. She demands the strange woman leave, and just then one of the kids from the first cabin arrives and tells them both that the police have been called. The stranger leaves and goes out of sight down a path into the woods. When officers arrive, they are pointed down the trail and soon hear the suspect running through dense brush. She is eventually cornered when she runs into a chain link fence, and she turns and charges at the officer following her. She tries to punch, kick and scratch him, but he uses his pepper spray to overcome her and places her in handcuffs. She is so combative that eventually the officers are forced to confine her on a backboard brought by Fire Department medics, and she is taken out of the brushy area through a hole cut in the chain link fence. She is taken to Harborview for treatment of scratches sustained running through blackberries...

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A West Seattle boy walks home at 7 p.m. on a Sunday. He is stopped by two other boys who walk up and ask him what he is listening to on his walkman. Then, two older men approach with about five or six other youths, two of whom are girls with small children. Without warning one of the older men pulls out a gun and says to his friends, "Pocket check the fool," meaning to search the victim's pockets. The second older man takes the boy's wallet out of his pants pocket, and also takes his CD player. The victim runs the two blocks to his house and calls 911, but responding officers cannot locate the suspects...

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At 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, a West Seattle woman looks into her front yard and sees her 10-year-old grandson outside with an older man who she believes is a neighbor. She sees the man point a pellet gun at her grandson's head. She approaches and tells the man to not ever do that again, and not to come near her home or children. The grandson tells police officers that he asked to see the gun, and the suspect primed it, pointed at the boy's head and dry-fired it, producing a puff of air. The boy says that then the man asked him if he wanted to "rob someone." Officers look for the suspect at the address he is believed to live at, but a young girl there says he actually lives in Georgetown and just visits at the house...

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