Police beat: A prom night gunshot, a “Walking Dead” baseball bat and a surly shoplifter

Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

May 5: The unwritten prom night rule book is complicated, but one entry is straightforward: Don’t accidentally shoot your date.

The dispatch call came from a 17-year-old girl who said her friend had been shot in the arm. Officers drove to the 2600 block of North McCarver Street and found two couples dressed in prom garb. One girl, 18, wore a full-length bronze-colored dress, stained with blood. She had a bandage on her arm.

At first, she couldn’t or wouldn’t say how she had been wounded. She said she heard a gunshot and realized she’d been shot. She hadn’t seen any suspects or other cars.

Officers spoke to an 18-year-old boy, who said three men wearing hoodies approached the car earlier and fired a round through the window.

The 17-year-old who called 911 said she’d been sitting in the backseat with her boyfriend. She said her friend had been driving. They’d stopped at a traffic light and she heard a shot. Her boyfriend and the other boy had started arguing.

The boy who had been in the back seat gave a similar account. He heard a shot and didn’t know where it came from.

Officers looked at the car. They found no evidence that the shot came from outside. No windows were broken. The bullet hole was on the inside, above the driver’s armrest.

The boy who had described men in hoodies had a grayish stain on his pants. Officers recognized it as gunshot residue.

Officers unraveled the story. The men in hoodies were invented. The 18-year-old boy changed his story. He said the group had stopped at a gas station earlier, and he had opened the trunk to get a change of clothes.

He had noticed a pistol in the trunk, possibly left by a relative. The boy picked it up and got back into the passenger seat. He started playing with it as they drove, and the gun “just went off,” he said.

The boy said he threw the gun away into some bushes nearby. Officers searched, but could not find it. They arrested the boy and booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of reckless endangerment. The wounded girl was taken to a local hospital for treatment. The other teens were picked up by their parents.

May 8: The man carried a bat wrapped in barbed wire, straight out of “The Walking Dead,” and waved it at his father’s girlfriend. She called 911, and the man ran.

Sheriff’s deputies drove to a home in the 18500 block of 197th Avenue East, near Orting. They found the man hiding in bushes near the back of the house. They spoke to the woman, who said she was visiting the man’s father. Earlier they’d gone to dinner, and the son had texted them a picture of himself holding the barbed-wire bat.

When the couple came back from dinner, the man was drunk and waiting, the woman said. He argued with them for the rest of the night. He came into the bedroom where they were sleeping and started in again.

The woman said she tried to talk to the man, but he got in her face. She pushed him away. He pushed back, and grabbed the bat. She grabbed a machete and told him to back away. He pushed her again. She told him to stop or she would call police. As she called, he followed her around with the bat.

The father said he hadn’t seen everything, but he did see the woman get pushed.

Officers spoke to the son. He slurred his words. He said his father hit him in the face, and pointed to scratches.

The wounds didn’t look like they came from a punch. The deputies decided to arrest the son. They spoke to the father again. He said he’d tapped his son on the shoulder earlier and told him not to speak to the woman that way. The son had walked away, returned with scratches on his face, and said he would tell police the father did it.

The deputies booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor assault.

May 8: The woman had grown accustomed to five-finger discounts, but the convenience store employees were tired of it.

The dispatch call reported an unwanted customer. Sheriff’s deputies drove to the 20300 block of Mountain Highway East, and found a woman fighting with customers and store employees, who had locked the doors to keep her from leaving.

Deputies took charge of the woman, who refused to speak to them. They spoke to a store clerk, who said the woman had been shoplifting from the store over the past few days. She came in again, grabbed beers from the cold case, and started to walk out. The clerk told her to stop.

The woman threw a beer at the clerk. It missed. A fight broke out. Other employees and customers waded into the scrum.

The clerk said she could provide surveillance video. The deputies ran a records check, and found the woman had been banned from a nearby business recently. They arrested her and booked her into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of second-degree burglary, misdemeanor assault and malicious mischief.

This story was originally published May 12, 2018 at 3:46 PM with the headline "Police beat: A prom night gunshot, a “Walking Dead” baseball bat and a surly shoplifter."