Police Beat: A punched window, garage squatters, a back bite

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

May 2: The woman wanted to bed down for the night, but the other tenants wouldn’t allow it.

The dispatch call, reported as vandalism, brought a pair of officers to an apartment address in the 2100 block of South L Street, shortly before 2 a.m.

A sleepy tenant, a house manager and another tenant greeted officers, who checked out a shattered window. The original call said someone threw a brick. Officers found no sign of one, though they noticed a blood trail that started at the window sill and continued on the sidewalk for half a block.

Two tenants said they thought they knew who broke the window. Both named a woman who had stayed at the house before. The house manager, a 52-year-old man, explained he had been in a relationship with the woman, but that was over.

Another woman had moved into the house, the manager said, and the first woman didn’t like it. The exes had argued, the manager said.

The manager said he heard the window shatter, looked out and saw someone walking away.

“That’s (her),” he said. “She’d do something like this.”

As he spoke to officers, his mobile phone rang. The manager looked at the number and nodded to officers — this was the woman.

The conversation ended a few moments later. The manager said the woman was at the hospital, and admitted punching the window. He said he didn’t want to press charges, and refused to provide a handwritten statement.

Officers drove to St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, and found the woman, 33, in the emergency room. Her right hand was wrapped in gauze, and she carried a white garbage bag, flecked with dried blood.

Officers began reading the woman her rights. Abruptly, she said she acted in self-defense.

She said she was living with her new husband in Puyallup, and came to the apartment to tell her ex that her husband was cheating on her. She admitted drinking — three cans of Long Island ice tea.

She said she’d been fighting with her ex on the porch, that he’d grabbed her neck and that her hand hit the window by accident during the scuffle.

The check-in nurse at the emergency room had heard a different version of the story. The woman claimed her ex had stabbed her in the hand with a shard of glass.

The stories didn’t match. Officers saw no sign of injury to the woman’s neck. The ex-boyfriend hadn’t mentioned a struggle, nor had the other tenants.

Officers told the woman she was under arrest, and took her to another hospital, where the wait for treatment was shorter. After that, they booked her into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of malicious mischief.

May 2: One man had permission to flop in the empty garage, but his two friends didn’t.

The dispatch call reported trespassers at an abandoned house in the 1800 block of South G Street. Two officers in separate cars drove to the spot. One parked in a nearby alley and padded toward the address. He heard voices coming from the garage. The other officer approached from the opposite side, and signaled that he had eyes on the three people inside.

Both officers drew their guns. One shouted at the trio to come out.

One man, 36, shouted, “I have permission to be here.” A woman, 33, stood with him.

A third man, 46, kept moving toward one of the officers, despite the drawn gun. The officer told him to stop. The man rushed forward, ducked behind a dumpster, and stumbled. Quickly, both officers closed.

The man twisted and tried to get away. Officers took him to the ground, but he flailed. One told him to stop, or take a stun-gun shot.

“OK, OK,” the man said. Officers cuffed him.

The first man provided a note from the homeowner that granted permission to stay in the garage. The note had a phone number. Officers called it.

The homeowner said yes, the man was helping with repairs to the house and had permission to stay in the garage. The other two people? He didn’t know them. That wasn’t part of the deal.

The man who had struggled with officers had an active arrest warrant from the state Department of Corrections. He knew it, he said; that was why he tried to run.

Officers booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on the warrant and suspicion of resisting arrest. The other man and the woman were given trespass notices and told to leave the property.

May 1: A rule of thumb regarding domestic violence incidents — if you’re playing the he-said/she-said game, grandparents will tip the odds.

The dispatch call reported a fighting couple. Officers drove to an address in the 3900 block of Everett Avenue. They found the grandparents, a 46-year-old man and a 50-year-old woman, standing on the porch.

The grandparents said their daughter had been assaulted by her boyfriend, who fought with the grandparents, too.

The daughter, 31, said she had a child with the boyfriend, 32, who sometimes came to visit. She said she picked up the boyfriend after work the night before. Overnight, they started fighting, she said; the boyfriend didn’t want their child staying at the grandparents’ house.

The boyfriend grabbed her by the throat and bit her on the back, the woman said. Officers looked her over, and saw wounds consistent with the story.

Grandma said her daughter called for help. Grandma told the boyfriend to get out, and Grandpa tried to make him go. The boyfriend tackled Grandpa, shoved him into a wall and punched Grandma in the face, the older people said.

Officers spoke to the boyfriend. He said he was the victim. The grandparents assaulted him. He said he had filed restraining orders against all of them, including his girlfriend. He said he had called police multiple times already that day to complain that his child was being held at the house.

What about the bite marks on the girlfriend’s back?

The boyfriend said he bit her while the grandparents were holding him down.

Officers ran a records check. They found no restraining orders, but they did find a prior arrest warrant tied to the man, for providing false information to police.

Officers booked the boyfriend into the Pierce County jail on suspicion of misdemeanor assault and the arrest warrant.

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 3:43 PM with the headline "Police Beat: A punched window, garage squatters, a back bite."