Police Beat: Party starts in borrowed house, ends in jail

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

Feb. 24: The party kicked for two weeks in the empty house. The squatters turned on every light, jacked up the heat and reveled.

The call came over dispatch just after midnight as a trespass, possibly a burglary. The house stood in the 600 block of East 46th Street.

Officers knew a little more than usual. The dispatch call traced back to one of the department’s community liaison officers. CLOs track nuisances, taking calls from the community about ongoing problems.

The house tied to a renter doing a rehab stint. He’d called police earlier in February to say no one was supposed to be in the house; anyone who claimed otherwise was lying, even if they dropped the renter’s name. A second call tied to the address came in on Feb. 21.

Two officers rolled to the address and called for backup. A dark-colored station wagon, parked sideways, blocked the driveway. The grass in the yard was tall. Piles of garbage bags leaked beer cans.

Light blazed from every window in the house. The two officers approached the front porch with flashlights. They saw two or three figures. One fled. An officer shouted: “Police!”

Another man looked at them, turned away and reached a hand toward his pocket.

“Stop! Police – show me your hands!”

The man ignored them. He opened the front door and walked inside. Officers heard the sound of a turning lock.

One officer banged on the door. No one answered. The other detained the second man, who hadn’t gone inside. Arriving officers picked up the third man who had fled.

By now, three officers stood at the front door. They heard commotion inside, and a female voice. A 27-year-old woman opened the door. She said she was cleaning the house for a friend; she dropped the resident’s name.

How did she get in? The woman said the resident’s brother let her in.

The sort-out took time. Officers walked through the house with a dog. Eventually, 8 people filed out: four men and four women, including a man who said he’d been sleeping.

He turned out to be the man who’d walked inside moments earlier and locked the door.

Officers asked if anyone had a key. No one did, but everyone had excuses.

The house was a mess. Every light was on. The heat pumped. A smeary pot of scalloped potatoes sat on the stove. Liquor bottles and beer cans lined the counters. A broken basement window revealed the likely entry point.

The bathrooms weren’t working. They stank of urine.

A records check on the woman who answered the door revealed an active arrest warrant from the state Department of Corrections. The woman had skipped on community custody. She kept saying she had permission to be there; officers said no one had permission to be there.

They arrested the whole group on suspicion of trespassing and residential burglary. One man, a 28-year-old out of Bremerton, shouted profane threats. He knew his rights, he said.

He shouted all the way to the Pierce County Jail. He threatened to sue. He said he’d done nothing wrong. Why couldn’t the cops arrest real criminals? All he’d done was come over to the house, smoke weed and get drunk.

“After partying at the house, he said he was going to go home so he could be with his newborn baby,” the report states.

Feb. 24: The Spanaway man lived two lives. He was a father, but he kept a girlfriend on the side. He didn’t want those worlds to collide.

The dispatch call came in as a possible domestic dispute in the 4300 block of East K Street. A woman was screaming for help. Officers rolled to the spot.

They found a woman, 27, walking along the sidewalk, followed by a man in a silver sedan, a 1995 Kia Sephia.

The car was inching along next to the woman. The man, 21, held a mobile phone out the window. Officers stopped him.

The man climbed out of the car and held up his hands. He said he hadn’t touched the woman.

“I know I messed up,” he said. “I’m just trying to give her her phone back.”

Officers cuffed the man, stowed him in a patrol car and talked to the woman.

She said they’d been arguing. She wanted the man to tell his baby’s mother that they were dating.

The man wouldn’t do it. He said he wouldn’t be able to see the baby if the truth came out. The woman didn’t like that answer. She threatened to call the other woman herself.

That started the fight, she told officers. The man grabbed the phone out of her hand.

They fought. He threw her to the ground. She cut her lip. He kneed her in the chest. She told him to stop. She wriggled free and ran outside, shouting for someone to call 911.

The man followed her in his car, pleading. She asked for her phone back. He refused.

She clambered into the car and they fought again. She jumped out when he nearly hit a parked car.

Told of the woman’s account, the man changed his story. He admitted wrestling with her, but he said she’d left her phone in his car.

Officers booked the man in to the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of fourth-degree assault. They gave the woman her phone.

Feb. 22: Do you work in an office with public access? Think twice before you step away for a bathroom break and leave your purse or wallet behind. You’re setting yourself up for a quick filch.

Police have tracked a string of eight such incidents in the downtown area since December. A Tacoma office worker was the latest victim.

The woman worked at the front desk of a law office in the 1200 block of Pacific Avenue.

She stepped away from her desk to hit the restroom and left her purse on the counter.

She came back five minutes later. The purse was gone, along with her wallet, ID and six credit cards.

Quickly, she called the banks to cancel her cards. One clerk told her someone had tried to use a card at an ATM machine a block away. The woman called police.

Officers responded and checked with security officers at the building. That led to some of the goods: the wallet and ID had been dropped on a flight of stairs, but the credit cards were gone.

Security footage revealed a young man, between 20 and 30, 6 feet tall and slender, with a goatee, a black wool hat and trench coat. Officers matched the footage to security photos from the nearby ATM. The face was the same; the goatee was unmistakable.

The man tried two bad pin numbers and gave up, according to bank records. The woman was lucky. Her money was safe.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Cool said such reports come in from time to time, but the recent rash of incidents reflects a jump. It’s not just money, she added; identity theft is the other danger.

“Even if you’re in an office building or somewhere you think is secure, please don’t leave your purse out or your wallet,” she said. “People can walk in – you’d think common sense would tell you.”

Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486

sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com