Police Beat: A toy bat, drunken shots fired, and a shirtless man in traffic

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

Oct. 12: The man yelled, brandished a toy baseball bat and refused to leave the hospital.

Officers drove to St. Joseph Medical Center at 1717 S. J St. to sort it out. They found the man, 38, in the waiting room, wielding a foam Spider-Man baseball bat and shouting at hospital staff.

When he saw the officers, the man cursed and said he wasn’t leaving. Then he told the officers to take him to jail. They cuffed him and stowed him in a patrol car.

Security staffers told the officers that the man had been asked to leave earlier because of his shouting. He had wandered into various clinics and offices. The man left, then returned with the toy bat. Again they told him to leave, but the man swung the bat and said, “I feel like killing people.”

Officers suspected the man had mental health problems, but couldn’t verify it at the scene. Court records indicate the man had past convictions for burglary and other offenses, and five commitments to Western State Hospital in Lakewood.

In the patrol car, the man rambled about retired basketball star Michael Jordan and angels. Officers tried to turn his talk, to make him explain what was wrong, but they had no luck. They booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of threats and verbal harassment.

Oct. 12: One thing about drinking is the loss of impulse control, the muffling of the voice in your head that says firing a few shotgun blasts out the window might be a bad idea.

The dispatch call reported shots fired. Two officers drove to an address in the 3500 block of Grandview Avenue East. When they arrived, Puyallup Tribal Police officers were already on the scene, talking to a 61-year-old man who allowed the whole crew into his house.

“I’m sorry, guys,” the man said. “I am just really drunk. If you guys let me go, I’ll never fire my shotgun off out of the window again.”

Asked what was going on, the man said he was drunk and upset. He fired two to three shots out of the upstairs window.

What kind of ammo?

Buckshot, the man said, adding that he was sure he fired into the air, not at the neighboring houses.

One officer found three spent shells on the floor below the window. Another found the shotgun on the man’s bed: a Remington 870, 12-gauge, modified — the stock and pistol grip were removed.

The man kept apologizing, asking the officers not to take his guns.

In the patrol car, the man suddenly struggled to breathe. A roommate found the man’s inhaler and delivered it to officers, who also called for aid from a Tacoma Fire Department medical team. The team looked the man over and released him to officers, who booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of unlawful discharge of a firearm.

Oct. 9: The shirtless man was knocking on doors in Graham, and running in and out of traffic in the dark. It was after 1 a.m.

A sheriff’s deputy drove to the intersection of 224th Street East and Orting-Kapowsin Highway. A woman flagged him down and said she nearly hit the man in the dark as he stood in the middle of the road. Another driver had banged into the woman’s car as a result.

The second driver said the shirtless man came to his car and tried to get in, acting high. The man had hopped into the bed of a passing pickup. The truck had turned around, and the man hopped out and ran.

The deputy searched, and eventually found the man, 25, a few blocks away. He was drunk, and admitted it, slurring in the process. He said he’d done nothing wrong and that it wasn’t his fault that the woman’s car got banged up. He said he’d been standing on the shoulder of the road, not in the middle.

The deputy told the man he was under arrest for disorderly conduct and cuffed him. A second deputy arrived. At that point, the man barked at the deputy to take off the handcuffs and let him fight.

He would knock the deputy out, he said. He would do it with his handcuffs on. He would headbutt the deputy and knock him out.

The second deputy took custody of the man and booked him into the Pierce County Jail.

This story was originally published October 15, 2016 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Police Beat: A toy bat, drunken shots fired, and a shirtless man in traffic."