Police beat: Flushed funny money, a reconciliation gone wrong, and a classic bar fight

Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police and the Gig Harbor Police Department.

Jan. 8: The fake $100 bill was such an obvious fake that the Gig Harbor police officer could tell even before he fished it out of the hotel toilet bowl.

Officers had been called to the hotel in response to a reported fight in one of the rooms. Standing at the door, they heard sounds of scuffling and thumping. Inside were four people: two women and two men, all in their late 20s and early 30s. One man was hiding in the bathroom, where an officer spotted the fake bill.

The men gave false names at first. The lie didn’t last. Both had active felony arrest warrants — one of them tied to a recent home invasion robbery in University Place.

What brought them to Gig Harbor?

“We’re on vacation,” one of the men said.

The two women had no warrants. Officers released them at the scene, noting that they left a plastic container behind. It was full of more counterfeit bills. The women said they didn’t know anything about the fake cash in the container, or the drug paraphernalia, or the stolen checks.

Officers left briefly, but returned when hotel employees called to say the women were still hanging around. Officers found them in a parked car with a third woman. A check of the plates revealed the car was stolen.

Officers searched the trunk and found more fake money and counterfeiting tools. The full funny money tally amounted to roughly $4,000 in 100s and 50s, badly printed.

This time, the two women were arrested. Officers found a third man, a boyfriend of one of the two women, wandering inside the hotel. Another records check revealed another warrant. Officer scooped the man up.

The third woman said she didn’t know the car was stolen, and didn’t know about the fake money in the trunk. Officers released her. The following morning, they returned to the hotel after another call from employees asking for help to remove her. Officers entered the woman’s hotel room and saw heroin in plain sight.

All six people were booked into the Pierce County Jail on arrest warrants, suspicion of counterfeiting, or drug possession.

Jan. 6: If you want to reconcile with your estranged girlfriend, drinking and waking the baby with loud music isn’t the best strategy.

Tacoma officers got the dispatch call shortly before 2 a.m. The report described a couple fighting at a hotel, and someone’s voice saying, “You can’t do this.”

Arriving in the 1800 block of South 76th Street, officers walked to the room and heard shouting behind the door. One officer knocked.

A man, 31, opened the door, emitting a waft of liquor. As officers spoke to him, a woman, 23, walked past them, holding a baby. She looked like she’d been crying.

Fumbling for his identification, the man said the argument was entirely verbal. The woman said it wasn’t. She said the couple came to the motel to fix their relationship.

The man drank throughout the evening, the woman said. He left, then came back, left again and came back. On the third go-round, he was playing music on his phone, so loudly that the baby woke up and started crying.

The woman told officers she grabbed the phone and turned the volume down. The man got angry and tried to grab her. She picked up her things and the child and tried to leave, but he locked the door and blocked her way.

The woman said she used her own phone to call 911. She said the man twisted her arm, and they both fell.

Officers decided the man was the aggressor. They booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor assault.

Jan. 6: Like many bar fights, the trouble started with a departure that bumped into an arrival.

Tacoma officers responding to reports of a fight and a crowd drove to the 2600 block of Pacific Avenue and swiftly found what they were looking for.

Bystanders pointed to a shirtless man, 24, crouching in the crowd. The man had been fighting with everybody, witnesses said.

Officers watched as the man shouted at another man, lunged and started throwing punches. After a short struggle, the man was pulled away and cuffed.

Officers asked him questions. He responded with curses and nothing else.

Another officer spoke to two women standing nearby. They said the man bumped into them as he walked out of the bar and knocked them over. Other bar patrons saw that, and assumed the man assaulted the women. The would-be saviors confronted the man, who took off his shirt and started fighting with all of them.

Another witness said he tried to talk the man down and cool him off. His reward was a punch in the face. Officers booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of fighting in public.

This story was originally published January 13, 2018 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Police beat: Flushed funny money, a reconciliation gone wrong, and a classic bar fight."