Police beat: A stolen tool, an assault on a truck, and a bicycle tug-of-war

Editors note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police.

Sept. 28: Working under his truck to replace a faulty fuel pump, his tools scattered nearby, the man heard a woman’s voice.

“Hey sir? Hey sir?”

The man, 54, dragged himself out from the guts of the truck. The woman looked young. She wore a pink hoodie and brown pants.

She asked for ibuprofen and showed the man a red blotch on her hip, calling it an abscess.

Suspicious, the man said he had no ibuprofen or drugs, and sharply told her to move on. The woman answered with a fast curse. The man crawled back under his truck.

The woman lingered. The man saw her reach into his toolbox and pick up a few items. Sliding back out, he yelled at her to drop them.

The woman backed away. The man followed. She threw down a tool, reached into her purse and pulled a folding knife.

“I’ll cut you,” she said.

The man halted. The woman ran. The man followed, called 911 on his mobile phone and trailed the woman as he waited.

Officers drove to the scene. One of them found the woman in the 600 block of South Sprague Avenue. Another spoke to the man, who told his story.

Both officers spoke to the woman, 34. She said she understood her rights. They searched her and found no knife.

She said she just asked the man for ibuprofen, and he yelled at her that he didn’t do drugs. She said she had an abscess on her hip. She said she used heroin.

She said she thought she heard the man say, “Take it,” and believed the man meant it was OK to take one of his tools, so she took one.

The man ran at her, she said, and she was frightened.

Did she threaten to stab him?

The woman thought briefly, and said yes — but only because she was frightened. She said she never had a weapon.

Her answers and manner were fuzzy and disjointed. Officers suspected a mental health problem. They searched the area for a knife and found nothing, but the area had plenty of yards and bushes.

Officers took the woman to Tacoma General Hospital to treat her wound, and later booked her into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of intimidation with a weapon.

Sept. 28: The feud between the transients was long and bitter, months in the brewing. It might have started with a disagreement over a woman, but it plainly ended with a fight and a coordinated assault on a pickup truck.

Officers drove to an area near the intersection of East Portland Avenue and East River Street, answering a reported call of vandalism and assault. They found a man, 49, standing next to a white 1997 Ford F250 with broken windows.

The man had cuts on his forehead and the left side of his head. He said he had been trying to help a friend move from a homeless camp nearby when he was attacked. Two men he knew rushed toward his truck and started throwing rocks. One rock crashed through the windshield and hit him. A car battery was smashed into the rear passenger window.

The man said he got out of the truck to defend himself. One of his attackers started beating him. The other grabbed a stick and whaled on the truck, shouting threats. The man fought his way back to the truck and drove away, with one of the attackers hanging on to the tailgate.

Other witnesses from the homeless camp backed up the man’s story. They knew the attackers and described them. One, known as Casper, was a drug dealer with a flashing temper, witnesses said.

Officers knew about Casper from prior contacts. His face was unmistakable; one of his nostrils was missing, bitten off in an earlier fight. Officers tracked him down in the 700 block of East 11th Street.

Casper, 52, didn’t fight the officers when they cuffed him and said he understood his rights. He said the man with the truck had been stealing his bikes and tried to run him over. Casper said the fight between the two had gone on so long that he just wanted to see the man with the truck locked up.

He admitted throwing rocks at the truck. He referred to the argument about a woman. Officers booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of assault and malicious mischief.

Sept. 25: Sometimes fighting couples disagree about possessions. Sometimes the fight ends with destruction.

Officers responding to a report of domestic violence drove to an address in the 3700 block of South Fawcett Street. They found a woman, 29, sitting in the yard in front of the house. Not far away sat her her husband, 27.

The woman said she’d been staying at a friend’s house in Puyallup lately. Today she came to the house to retrieve her bicycle. Her husband said she couldn’t have the bike, that it wasn’t hers.

The husband grabbed a kitchen knife and started sawing at the brake and gear cables, the woman said. When that didn’t work, he slashed the tires.

The woman grabbed the bike and tried to pull it out of the bedroom. That started a tug of war, and the bike hit her in the leg. That was when she called police, she said.

An officer looked the woman over and saw scrapes on her thigh, marked by what looked like grease. The woman said she didn’t think her husband meant to assault her. The officer looked at the bike. The cables were damaged, but not broken. The tires were flat.

The woman showed the officer a jumpy phone video. On the screen, the man could be seen holding a knife and sawing at the tires, which hissed as the air leaked out.

Officers spoke to the husband, who said his wife had been staying somewhere else lately and came back to take the bike. He said the bike didn’t belong to her and acknowledged the tug of war and slashing the tires.

Officers booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of malicious mischief. The woman refused to sign a domestic violence form.

This story was originally published October 1, 2016 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Police beat: A stolen tool, an assault on a truck, and a bicycle tug-of-war."