Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma Police.
Thursday, Jan. 10, 3:19 a.m.: The Puyallup man snored in the driver’s seat of a stolen car. His window was down.
He was 50, parked and wasted in the 2600 block of South Delin Street.
The motor ran. The parking lights glowed. The radio played. A police patrol car rolled up. The man snored.
An officer gave the dreamer a lookover. Big one: 6-2, 215 pounds, short hair, jean jacket, dirty shirt and boots. Faint smell of liquor. The officer knocked on the doorframe to wake him up. The man was startled.
He said he didn’t have a driver’s license but gave his name.
What was he doing?
The man said he was supposed to meet his girlfriend in about 10 minutes.
When? 1:30.
Officers ran the man’s name: bad hits. License suspended. The man popped up on a no-contact order filed back in August. An officer cuffed him.
The car, a 1997 Subaru Legacy, belonged to the man’s girlfriend. The man said he had permission to drive it.
He said he didn’t know about the no-contact order. She didn’t come to court, so the order was dismissed, he said. The court sent him a letter.
He told the truth: Court records show the order had been dismissed in August.
Officers called the 35-year-old woman named in the no-contact order. She said the man had taken her car without permission. She couldn’t drive it, either. She was on electronic home monitoring for a DUI.
She said she let the man visit. He asked to use the car. She didn’t say yes. She told him if he got stopped, he had to admit he didn’t have permission.
Officers ran the background on the Subaru. It tied to a different address and a third man: the estranged husband of the 35-year-old woman.
The husband, 45, said he was worried about the kids, who were staying with his ex. He was going to go pick them up.
Jan. 6, 3:30 a.m.: Service was too slow in the St. Joseph Medical Center emergency room.
The two men disapproved, so they trashed the lobby and threatened to shoot people.
They pair had been drinking and smoking weed when their friend, a 23-year-old Tacoma man, started foaming at the mouth. They hustled him to the hospital.
Officers answered a 911 call and broke up a shouting match in the lobby. One man, a 24-year-old, was shouting at a nurse and three security guards, saying he would get his gun, come back and shoot them.
One officer called out. The 24-year-old turned and stepped forward. Another man, a 23-year-old, did the same. The officer told them to stop. They didn’t. The officer drew a gun. The men stopped. The officers cuffed them.
The security guards and the nurse gave similar accounts. The guards said the two men were out of hand. One destroyed a sign in the lobby. The other threatened to shoot up the hospital. The guards said they believed the threats were genuine.
The nurse said he’d been trying to treat the ailing friend, but the other two men were complaining about it. That was how the threats started.
The first man said he didn’t know threatening to kill people was a crime. He admitted it and apologized. He was upset and didn’t mean it. He was booked on suspicion of felony harassment.
The second man admitted destroying the sign. He said he did it because his friend wasn’t getting good treatment. He was booked on suspicion of vandalism.
Jan. 5: The Tacoma woman was 78, headed back to her car after a little shopping.
A middle-aged man, about 40, approached her with an offer: he could fix the dents in her car for $80.
That sounded like a good deal, the woman thought. She handed the man the cash. The man said he needed to rent special equipment to handle the job. The equipment wouldn’t cost anything, but he’d have to put down a $400 security deposit. The woman would get it right back.
She wrote a blank check for $400, with a careful note in the memo section: “for deposit only.” The man left with the check and didn’t come back. The woman soon learned the check had been cashed.
She told police she thought the note on the check would prevent such misuse. The officer explained otherwise.
The woman didn’t know the man’s name. She gave a general description and not much more. She knew he drove a white pickup, but she didn’t know the male and model, and she hadn’t noticed the license plate. The officer filed a report.
Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486
sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com
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