Police beat: A Van Halen headbanger, a man with a wig, and a knife-wielding fugitive

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

May 12: The headbanger cranked the Van Halen track so loud the Ruston Way waterfront trembled.

An off-duty Tacoma police officer taking an afternoon walk heard the ear-crunching metal from four blocks away. It was coming from a green 1997 Ford Ranger pickup, parked in a disabled space along the 3800 block.

The officer walked toward the truck and saw the headbanger standing next to it, deep in the throes of an air guitar solo, head bobbing.

The headbanger, 56, had a familiar face. The officer had cited him in early April for a public disturbance in the same area. Another officer had cited him for the same behavior on May 2. He had generated numerous noise complaints in recent months.

The officer didn’t say anything. He glanced at the license plate and made a mental note. The headbanger spotted him.

“That’s right!” he shouted, adding an epithet. “Call 911. The (expletive) number is 911, (expletive). Call it!”

The officer called a non-emergency number and asked for assistance. Two on-duty officers responded, arriving with emergency lights flashing.

The music coming from the truck was deafening; conversation was impossible. The headbanger didn’t notice the officers until one of them tapped him on the shoulder. The officer reached into the truck and turned off the music.

Officers booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of creating a public disturbance. The truck was towed.

May 13: The man hiding in the pickup truck carried a backpack, a knit Seahawks cap, and a blond wig.

He dropped them all when the sheriff’s deputy spotted him at 3:40 a.m. in the 18300 block of 1st Avenue Court East, near a small group of cabin-style apartments.

The man, 36, immediately shot his hands in the air and said he had an active arrest warrant. The deputy checked. The man wasn’t lying. The warrant came from the state Department of Corrections. Along with the warrant, the man had a long record of minor convictions, tied chiefly to drugs and low-level violence.

The man wore gloves. He said he had drug paraphernalia in the backpack, and used heroin. The deputy checked. The man wasn’t lying. The backpack contained an assortment of used and unused needles, cotton balls and spoons with drug residue.

What was the man doing?

Dumpster diving, he replied. Sometimes he found useful things.

Why the gloves?

The man said he didn’t want to get stuck with needles while he was rummaging through trash.

What about the blond wig?

The man said he found it in the trash.

Gloves and a wig looked like good tools for burglary. Was the man burglarizing the apartments?

No, he said, though he understood how things looked.

The deputy booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on the warrant and suspicion of unlawful use of drug paraphernalia.

May 13: The dispatch call reported an assault with a knife, and a fleeing suspect.

A sheriff’s deputy drove to an apartment complex in the 13300 block of Meridian Avenue East. Three witnesses flagged her down, pointing and shouting, “He went that way.”

The deputy drove into the parking lot. Two children waved at her and pointed to back side of the complex. The deputy parked and started running.

A second deputy joined the chase, taking a separate route, and found the man hiding between a pair of lawn chairs, sweating, huffing and puffing. The deputy cuffed him.

Where was the knife? The man said he didn’t know.

The deputy asked again, saying he didn’t want a child to find the knife and get hurt.

The man paused, then said he didn’t know what the deputy was talking about.

The deputy backtracked the man’s route, and found a knife nearby, hidden near a gutter.

The deputies interviewed victims. One said the man had broken into his tent recently and tried to choke him while hunting for drugs.

A second victim said the man broke into his tent on a drug hunt, and stole a knife and a child’s bicycle. The second victim had followed the man to a nearby grocery store, which led to a fight. Both victims said the man threatened them with the knife. Both identified the knife when the deputy showed it to them.

The man, 30, said “some white guy” approached him at the grocery store and accused him of stealing, so they started to fight. Asked to be more specific, he wouldn’t. Asked to describe the fight, the man admitted he threw a few punches and wouldn’t say more.

Deputies booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of assault and robbery.

This story was originally published May 19, 2018 at 6:47 PM with the headline "Police beat: A Van Halen headbanger, a man with a wig, and a knife-wielding fugitive."