Police Beat: Tale of woe starts with running water

Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma Police.

Jan. 27: The bathtub faucet on the sixth floor ran nonstop for nine hours. Other tenants at the Winthrop Apartments on Commerce Street had no hot water, and the low pressure was a nuisance. The manager tried to talk to the man in the sixth-floor apartment and told him to shut off the water. The man, 45, wouldn’t answer the door. He launched a rambling, yelling tirade.

The manager called police and said the tenant might have mental issues.

Officers knocked on the man’s door. The man shouted threats. He would kill the officers if they didn’t go away and leave him alone. That required a judgment call. Officers chose a simple route: they turned off the water supply to the apartment, solving the immediate problem. Confronting the man wasn’t worth it, they decided.

After a chat with the building manager, they reconsidered. The manager said the man had been involved in a possible aggravated assault on another tenant the day before.

The other tenant lived on the eighth floor – a 32-year-old man, developmentally disabled.

“I’m scared,” the man said. The officers asked him to explain.

The man said he was visiting a friend when the tenant on the sixth floor chased him down the hallway with a framing hammer.

The 32-year-old said he’d left a computer program in his friend’s car and he wanted to borrow the keys. He saw the older tenant standing about 50 feet away. Trying to be friendly, the younger man said, “Hey,” and turned his back.

The older man said, “Hey big guy – I’m going to kill you.”

The younger man turned around. The older man charged toward him, hammer held high, shouting “I’m going to kill you,” again and again.

The younger man ran, hustling into his friend’s apartment, slamming the door and locking it. He heard bangs on the door, then silence, then other bangs, receding.

Why didn’t he call police? The man said he was scared. He didn’t know if he should. The older man didn’t actually hit him.

Did he fear for his life? Yes.

By now, other officers had arrived on the scene. A sergeant made the call: make the arrest. The sergeant called the tenant’s phone and told him to come out. The tenant refused and ranted.

A breaching team approached the door with a ram. Something heavy blocked the door from the inside. It turned out to be a couch. The door came down and officers burst in.

“Don’t kill me!” the tenant shouted. They ordered him to the ground at the point of a taser. The man was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of second-degree assault.

Jan. 28: The man flopped in the drugstore parking lot over the weekend and slept in his car.

Location: 8400 block of Pacific Avenue. Store employees said the man looked about 55 – 5-10, a wiry, dirty guy who needed a shave. He drove a 1986 Ford Bronco, dark blue.

By Monday morning, he’d stayed too long. The manager of the store, a 36-year-old woman, told him he had an hour to vacate or she’d call a tow truck.

A little later, the manager told the photo clerk to see whether the man was gone. The clerk stepped outside. She was 51. She drove a red 1993 Chevy Suburban. The man was standing next to it, siphoning gas into a big can.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the clerk asked.

The man said nothing – he walked away quickly, heading down South 84th Street. Police answered a 911 call. They found the Bronco, but not the man.

Jan. 28: Maybe it was revenge – the cops couldn’t be sure. The first call came in at 1 a.m. as a reported theft. A 33-year-old Tacoma woman said she had unwanted guests.

She owned a home in the 4600 block of North Frace Street. She told officers she lived with a roommate who wasn’t home. The roommate had allowed a friend of a friend to stay at the house. The friend was gone, but he’d allowed two other friends to hang out.

The homeowner had been away for a few days. She came back and found the two unwanted guests. She also noticed her flat-screen TV was missing. She told officers she thought the two guests had pawned the TV. She couldn’t prove it, but she wanted them gone.

The two men, a tall guy, 31, and a short guy, 30, said they knew nothing about the TV, but they agreed to go.

The second call came two hours later, at the same address. This time the short guy was complaining. He was standing next to his car, a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee with two flat tires.

One flat tire had an obvious knife mark in the sidewall. The other didn’t.

The short guy blamed the homeowner for slashing the tires. He had no proof, and didn’t see her do it. He said she was crazy. Officers filed the report for information.

Jan. 28: The man was a health-conscious thief. He stole salad.

The manager of a pizza place in the 4900 block of Tacoma Mall Boulevard called at 9 p.m. to report the theft.

The man, 46, had walked into the restaurant carrying a plastic bag, the manager said. He walked to the salad bar, grabbed handfuls of greens and stowed them in the bag. Then he asked employees for a courtesy cup of water. Handed a cup, he walked to the iced-tea fountain, filled his cup and drained it.

The manager told the man to leave; he was scaring the customers, plus it was closing time. The man refused until the manager said he was calling police. The man left.

Officers found him walking on the South 56th Street overpass that spanned I-5, carrying his bag of salad.

The man said he did nothing wrong. Officers ran a background check. The man had an arrest warrant tied to the Department of Corrections; he’d escaped from community custody. Officer booked him into the Pierce County Jail on the warrant, and told him he was forbidden to go back to the pizza place.

Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486 sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com