Police Beat: Rants at imaginary immigrants, a haircut gone bad and clumsy evasion

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

Oct. 22: The man called the neighbors immigrants. He ranted about Canada, about Mexico, about green cards, about a car parked on the sidewalk.

The neighbors weren’t immigrants. They weren’t from Canada or Mexico. Admittedly, one had parked her van in the sidewalk area in front of the house.

The first 911 call reported an unwanted person. Two Tacoma police officers drove to the 100 block of South 56th Street. They found a man, 44, sitting in a grassy yard, not far from a piece of wood about two feet long.

A group of neighbors stood nearby. Officers noticed a silver 2004 Honda Odyssey with a damaged passenger window.

Who owned the minivan?

A woman raised her hand.

“It’s mine,” she said, and pointed to the man sitting on the ground. “He did it.”

Officers approached the man. He rambled about immigrants, parking problems and the justice system.

Unprompted, the man pointed to the damaged window.

“Yeah, I did that,” he said. “That (expletive) car is illegally parked. I want that car taken care of because it’s parked on the sidewalk. I’m OK about you guys (the officers) because you can fix all this.”

Officers told the man he was under arrest. They tried to cuff him. He tensed his body and pulled his arms into his chest.

“No, you’re not!” the man yelled. “I’m not going to jail!”

The struggle didn’t take long. Soon the man was cuffed and stowed in a patrol car.

The neighbors gave officers more details. They had recorded portions of the incident on a cell phone.

The woman who owned the van said she and her husband were standing outside, waiting for their children to be dropped off by a school bus, when the man walked toward them and started complaining about the minivan.

The man picked up the piece of wood and started hitting the Odyssey with it, neighbors said. One neighbor told him to stop, but the man pushed him away.

Throughout the encounter, the man demanded to see the neighbors’ “green cards” while ranting about the country’s immigration problems.

The man was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor assault, destruction of property and resisting arrest. Jail staff rejected his entry for medical reasons. He was taken to Allenmore Hospital for treatment, given a citation and released.

Oct. 21: Not liking his haircut was all it took to set the man off.

The dispatch call reported domestic violence. Two Pierce County sheriff’s deputies drove to the 4400 block of Gay Road East and assessed the situation.

They spoke to a woman who said her boyfriend didn’t like the way she cut his hair. She said she sat down on a couch when the man approached from behind, wrapped both hands around her neck and started squeezing.

“Why did you (expletive) my hair up?” the man asked.

The woman said she grabbed her cell phone and told the man she was calling police. The man grabbed the phone.

She tried to use the house phone. He snatched it.

The woman said she tried to leave the house, but the man blocked her and pushed her down. She went to the bathroom, opened a window and crawled out. She screamed for help and made her way to a house across the street.

The man had left. Deputies tracked him down by calling the woman’s phone. He answered. A deputy told him to come back to the house. The man agreed.

Asked what had happened, the man said his girlfriend messed up his hair and they had argued about it. He admitted grabbing her neck — gently, he said — to show her the bad haircut. He said the woman threw her phone at him.

The man said he left at that point, and intended to sleep at work to avoid more conflict. He denied pushing the woman and denied taking her phone.

Deputies arrested the man and booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence.

Oct. 19: The man’s evasive maneuvers were clumsy at best. Maybe it was the meth.

A sheriff’s deputy on routine patrol in Midland spotted the telltale signs immediately. A Toyota Camry not far away had accelerated abruptly, as if the driver didn’t want to be seen. The deputy followed.

The Camry quickly veered behind a strip mall, then into the parking lot of an apartment complex. Close enough to see the license plate, the deputy could tell the tabs were expired. He pulled the car over.

The Camry parked suddenly. Suspecting the driver might run, the deputy stepped out of his patrol car and moved to the driver’s door. The man, starting to get out, stopped.

Did he know why he was being pulled over?

The man, 30, said it was probably the expired tabs.

Right, the deputy said, and asked for the man’s license and registration.

The man handed over a state identification card and said his license was suspended.

The man was edgy, maybe too edgy, the deputy thought. He called for backup, told the man to get out of the car and cuffed him.

Something fell out of the man’s shorts: a plastic baggie filled with a crystalline substance. Two more baggies spilled out.

Was that methamphetamine?

The man said yes.

How much?

The man said it would probably amount to about five grams. The deputy weighed it: 5.3 grams.

The deputy booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of drug possession.

This story was originally published October 27, 2018 at 1:50 PM.