Police Beat: Dead garden gnomes, a church break-in, and a broken family
Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
Nov. 12: The garden gnomes gave their lives — casualties of a quasi-religious war.
The dispatch call reported a neighbor disturbance. Two Tacoma officers drove to the 4600 block of East F Street and spoke to a man who told an odd story.
The man, 53, said he heard pounding and kicking at the front door and saw a woman, his neighbor, knock a flower planter off the front porch. The woman then picked up two garden gnomes from the front walkway and hurled them into the street, where they shattered.
The man told the woman to stop. She answered with profanity and a sexual slur and told the man to call police before walking back to her house.
Officers wondered whether they were dealing with a hate crime. The man didn’t think so. The slur made no sense to him; he said he wasn’t gay.
Officers spoke to the woman, 36. She said she destroyed the garden gnomes because the man had kicked a Christian figurine in her front yard.
Officers looked at the figurine. They saw no damage. Was she sure the man had kicked it?
The woman rambled. She said she didn’t actually see the kicking. Then she said she did. She talked about the neighbor, and wove a tale of persecution.
She said the man was in a relationship with another neighbor, and they constantly showed her images depicting homosexuality. They hated her because she was a Christian, she said.
Officers thought the woman sounded erratic and agitated, perhaps ready to act out again. They arrested her and booked her into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of malicious mischief.
Nov. 11: The man sought sanctuary, but the church doors were locked.
The dispatch call reported a possible burglary in progress. Sheriff’s deputies drove to a church in the 6400 block of 154th Street Northwest, near Purdy, where an alarm blared.
Deputies spoke to a man who had keys. Someone was inside the church, he said. He heard the alarm, came to check, found a broken window, and called 911.
The man unlocked the door. The deputies entered and saw a man inside, wrapped under a blanket in the middle of the room. Deputies cuffed him and asked him what he was doing.
The man said he was cold and needed a place to sleep.
Was he homeless? He wouldn’t answer. He admitted throwing a brick through the window, but he wouldn’t say anything else.
Deputies booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of second-degree burglary.
Nov. 11: The family was breaking, and the mother couldn’t stop breaking it.
The dispatch call reported domestic violence. Sheriff’s deputies drove to the 5700 block of 209th Street East in Spanaway. They spoke to a man, 51, who said his partner, 48, had stopped by to visit their children, and started drinking again.
The pattern was old. The woman had been arrested before, suspected of abusing the couple’s three children. She didn’t live at the home anymore. In spite of an active protection order, the man had allowed her to visit the children, as long as she stayed sober.
She broke the promise, the man said. They argued about it, and the woman left.
The deputies cleared the scene and told the man to call back if the disturbance continued.
He called half an hour later. The woman was back, refusing to leave, he said. The deputies returned. The woman was gone. They looked for her without success, and left again.
The man called 20 minutes later. The woman was back, pounding on his door.
The deputies hustled to the scene, arriving within three minutes. The woman had vanished again. The deputies hunted.
They heard noises in the fenced back yard. The man opened the gate for them.
The deputies shouted, identifying themselves. No one answered, but they caught a whiff of liquor in one corner of the yard.
Moments later, they spotted the woman, hiding under a trailer. They tried to pull her out. The woman fought. Eventually, she was cuffed.
Told she was under arrest, she shouted, slurring her words and cursing. She said she didn’t understand her rights. She refused to answer questions.
On the way to the Pierce County Jail, she kept yelling, saying the deputies had no right to arrest her. She banged her head against the partition of the patrol car. She slipped out of the handcuffs. The deputy stopped the car and tried to put them back on. The woman fought, to no avail. She was booked on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence.
This story was originally published November 17, 2018 at 1:19 PM.
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