Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma Police.
Oct. 10: The chicken killer tried to kindle a backyard barbecue and gave up.
An officer responding to a vandalism report in the 8400 block of A Street found a distraught 55-year-old woman grieving over her five chickens. She raised them for eggs. She came home and found them slaughtered, their throats cut.
The officer surveyed the backyard and found spots of blood in the chicken coop. Sticks of burned wood lingered in a makeshift fire pit. The woman said she’d seen a man who looked to be in his 30s, dressed in black, running away from the yard. He might have thrown rocks at her garage as he ran.
The chickens were piled in a bucket, all dead. If the man intended to cook them, he hadn’t got started. The officer noticed a water hose by the fire pit. The woman guessed the fleeing man had placed it there.
The officer told the woman to clear the undergrowth from her backyard. It looked like a transient camp, he said; leaving in that condition would attract looters and squatters. He gave her a case number and filed a report.
Oct. 6: The drunk felt like hulking out, but he needed a target.
He found one: a 22-year-old man, just finishing a shift at a restaurant in the 700 block of Broadway. It was 1:21 a.m. The 22-year-old walked to his car. The drunk intercepted him.
The drunk looked to be about 20, 5-feet-7 with brown hair, about 180 pounds. He wore a white V-neck T-shirt and blue jeans. He stared at the 22-year-old and flexed – the hulk pose. Abruptly, he threw a punch and hit the other man in the face. Once more, the drunk flexed and posed. He ran to a car, a white Honda Civic hatchback, jumped in and sped away.
The 22-year-old declined medical aid when an officer arrived, but he remembered the license plate number on the Civic. The officer logged the information and filed a report.
Oct. 6: The 60-year-old Tacoma man missed his friends in jail. He wanted back in.
Officers knew him by sight. He was a regular, a frequent flier. The call came in as a reckless-burning report – a trash can fire outside the Hotel Murano on Broadway.
By the time officers arrived, the fire was out, doused by Tacoma firefighters. The 60-year-old sat on the corner talking to himself, his speech a slurred ramble. The officers recognized him immediately. He admitted starting the fire with a lighter. He carried four of them.
He bragged that he set trash can fires all over the city. The officers knew it; he had a history. He said he started the fires because he hated walking the city streets. He wanted to visit his friends in jail. Officers obliged and booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of reckless burning.
Oct. 11: The man wasn’t a police officer, but he talked like one, flashed a badge and carried a gun.
The report came from a 31-year-old woman, a known prostitute spotted in the area of Pacific Avenue South. An officer stopped her, and she told a story. Three nights earlier, she’d spoken to a man in a convenience store parking lot in the 9400 block of Pacific.
The man had beckoned, and she’d stepped into his car, figuring him for a customer. She slid into the passenger seat. The man flashed a badge and a gun, saying, “Tacoma Police, get in the car, don’t make a scene.”
The man was young, tall and slender. He spoke into a walkie-talkie, saying, “I need backup.” He turned to the woman.
“I was gonna take you to jail, but I like you tonight,” he said. He asked where he could find underage girls in the area. The woman didn’t know of any, but she lied and said she did.
The man said he was “working with the MPs.” He didn’t have to take the woman to jail, he said – but she’d have to do him a favor for free, right there in the car.
The man drove the woman 10 blocks north, she said, letting her out in the 8400 block.
She gave a description of the car and the plate number: a newer SUV with a Defense Department sticker in the windshield. She’d seen it other times.
The officer ran the vehicle description. The information didn’t track to anyone on the Tacoma force; the trail led to Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The vehicle was tied to a 27-year-old man. The officer shared the information with military police on the base. As of Friday, the investigation was ongoing.
Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486
sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com
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