Police Beat: Stolen gravel, fleeing with the hood up, and domestic tire-slashing

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

Sept. 26: A cubic yard of walkway gravel costs $40 or so, but the Pierce County men weren’t willing to pay the retail price.

The dispatch call reported a burglary in progress. A sheriff’s deputy drove to the 15200 block of Woodland Avenue East in South Hill, searching for two people in an older pickup, brown with a white hood.

Before long, he spotted it. The truck turned a corner and disappeared briefly before driving into a dead end.

The deputy pulled it over. Two more deputies arrived. All three approached the truck. The bed was loaded with a bright yellow lawnmower, two toolboxes, a sod roller, shovels and a pile of gravel.

The original call reported two people in the truck. The deputies saw only one. They asked the driver where he was going.

The man, 35, said he was on his way to pick up a friend and take him to work.

Where was the passenger who was seen earlier?

The driver said the passenger jumped out when the cops started chasing them. He gave the passenger’s name.

The driver said he’d picked up the man earlier. He said the man told him to stop the truck at one point. The driver said he fell asleep briefly, and woke to see the man filling the truck bed with items.

The man looked over the items in the truck bed and inside the cab. The lawnmower, sod roller, gravel and toolboxes didn’t belong to him, he said.

Meanwhile, another deputy spoke to the victim of the burglary, a homeowner who lived nearby. The homeowner said someone had broken into his garage earlier and loaded various items into the truck, as well as the gravel, before speeding away. It didn’t take long.

Told of the homeowner’s account, the deputy confronted the driver, who admitted his friend knew about some gravel in a nearby lot and wanted to take some.

The deputy decided the driver’s story of falling asleep was questionable, and told him he was under arrest. Where was the passenger?

The driver said he didn’t know. He said his girlfriend might. She was staying at a nearby residence with the passenger.

Deputies drove to the address. The driver had directed them to a shed behind the main house. Almost immediately, they spotted the passenger walk inside and shut the door. They knocked. No one answered.

They announced themselves. No one answered. They said they were prepared to force the door and make an arrest.

The passenger, a 27-year-old man, came out. He admitted taking the gravel, the lawnmower and the other tools. He said he was trying to build a walkway in front of the shed.

Both men were booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of residential burglary.

Sept. 25: Some lies are clever. Some just don’t cut it.

The Tacoma officers were on routine patrol in the 7600 block of South Hosmer Street when they spotted a 2007 Kia Optima parked near an all-night burger joint. The hood was propped up as though someone was trying to fix it.

Abruptly, the car took off with the hood still up. The officers followed. The driver hit speeds of 30 to 40 miles per hour as he careened through the parking lot. He tried to exit onto South 80th Street before officers pulled him over.

The man stepped out of the car quickly as officers approached and shut the hood. He said he didn’t realize it was still propped up.

Asked for his name and identification, the man said he didn’t have any ID. He said his name was Dominic. Asked to spell it, he gave two versions: Dominic and Dominique. He said that was his first name and middle name: Dominic Dominique Jones.

A records check on the name the man gave turned up nothing. Confronted, the man, 24, gave his real name, which was attached to three arrest warrants and a suspended driver’s license.

The man didn’t have a key to the Kia. The ignition was damaged, started with a fixed-blade knife.

Officers arrested the man and booked him into the Pierce County Jail on the warrants. The car was impounded.

Sept. 25: The three roommates argued over an old issue: money. That was normal, but then the punching started, and someone picked up a kitchen knife.

Two Tacoma officers, responding to a 911 call, drove to the 3900 block of Mason Loop Road and spoke to the combatants.

They found a woman, 24, who immediately said no knives were involved in the incident.

A second woman, 25, sat in a back bedroom. Her face was swollen.

She said she’d lived at the place since June. Her roommates had been friends, but now they were trying to kick her out and demanding money, though she’d found jobs for both of them.

She went into the kitchen for something to eat, she said. That was when the fight started.

She said the 24-year-old woman confronted her and pushed her, so she pushed back. She said the younger woman’s boyfriend tried to separate them, but not before the younger woman punched her in the face, grabbed a knife, walked outside and slashed the older woman’s tire.

The woman had recorded the slashing on her phone. She showed it to the officer. The footage was dark and blurry, but the officer could hear the distinctive sound of a tire deflating.

The officer looked at the woman’s car and found a slashed tire. He spoke to the younger woman, who was crying.

She said she’d been punched, too. She said she grabbed the knife to de-escalate the situation, and admitted slashing the tire.

The boyfriend complained. He thought arresting his girlfriend was unfair. The roommate had drug problems and debts, he said.

It didn’t matter. The younger woman was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence and malicious mischief.

This story was originally published September 29, 2018 at 3:14 PM.