Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police.
Feb. 7, 9 p.m.: The husband and wife from Joint Base Lewis-McChord had a novel approach to parenting. They left their two boys, ages 3 and 4, in a van with the engine running and shopped for 90 minutes at a Tacoma sex shop.
The clerk was appalled. She called police officers to the store in the 8000 block of South Hosmer.
Officers rolled into the parking lot and peered into a green minivan, locked and running. One shone a flashlight into the window. The two boys were inside, watching a movie.
“I smiled and waved at the children,” the officer wrote. “They both smiled and waved back.”
Inside the store, the husband and wife, both 23, were still shopping, in the midst of spending $430. They didn’t notice the officers outside. The man was carrying a third child, a 1-year-old boy.
The officer spoke to the couple.
“I asked why they would leave their two small children in a running vehicle while they were inside the adult store,” the officer wrote.
The parents said the van was locked. It was OK, they said. They parked in front so they could see the children.
The officer said the couple hadn’t seen the officer outside, peering into the van. She added that a second or two was all it would take for someone to break into the car and steal it with the children inside.
Leaving children in a running vehicle was against the law, said the officer, who suggested an alternative: one parent could shop, the other could stay with the kids. Why not try that?
The couple didn’t answer. The officer cited them both and handed them the tickets.
The clerk who reported the call said the couple had done the same thing before, leaving the kids in the van for more than an hour while they shopped. The clerk had called police that time, too – but the couple left before officers arrived.
Feb. 7: The woman didn’t like the nurse, so she set her hospital bed on fire.
She was 43, 5 feet, 2 inches and drunk, admitted to the emergency room at Allenmore Hospital. She’d been difficult, fighting with hospital personnel and spitting on them, so they’d put her in restraints.
The nurse, a man, was 42 and bigger: 6 feet, 240 pounds. Making the rounds, he spotted a flickering light. A section of the woman’s bed was on fire, near her right hand, which held a lighter.
The nurse tried to slap the flames out with his hands and gave himself second-degree burns. He finally put it out with a pillow. He took the lighter. The woman claimed the nurse had hit her in the stomach. He denied it.
Officers talked to the woman, who was still drunk. She told them to let her go and threatened to defecate on the floor. She was cited on suspicion of arson and aggravated assault, but not taken to jail immediately; officers had to wait until hospital personnel were finished treating her.
Feb. 3: The car prowler picked the wrong neighbors to mess with.
About 10:45 p.m., residents in the area of East 34th Street and East Grandview Avenue spotted a figure outside, trying to open car doors. One was a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air in peak condition.
One neighbor called another: the 51-year-old man who owned the Bel Air. The first neighbor walked outside to confront the prowler and ask what he was doing. The prowler, a 22-year-old man, said he was supposed to meet a friend at a nearby school. He couldn’t remember the name of the school.
By this time, the owner of the Bel Air and another neighbor had walked outside. The car owner was carrying a Taser. The three men walked toward the prowler and told him not to move; they were calling police.
The prowler backed up and reached for his back pocket. The neighbors asked him what was in his pocket. A hatchet, the prowler said.
The prowler lunged forward. The car owner fired the Taser. It didn’t work; the bolts didn’t penetrate the prowler’s clothes.
The prowler ran. The neighbors chased him. The prowler slipped and fell down an embankment. The neighbors caught up with him and held him down.
Police arrived and cuffed the prowler. They took his hatchet and three screwdrivers. They also took the victim’s Taser.
The prowler admitted he’d been arrested before for “scrapping” – stealing and selling metal. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of possessing burglary tools and a weapon.
Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486
sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com
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