Police Beat: Forged tabs, dueling over dogs, and a not-so-charming drunk
Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police.
Jan. 23: One car was down. The man didn’t have the money to fix it, but he had to get to work, so he made a choice.
A sheriff’s deputy spotted him at 7:20 a.m., driving through the 9800 block of 168th Street East on South Hill.
A routine check of the license plate brought back a hit: The tabs on the car said 2019, but the records said the plate had expired in 2011.
The deputy pulled the car over. He spoke to the driver and explained why.
The man, 57, hung his head.
“Yeah,” he said.
The man stepped out of the car. The deputy pointed to the license plate.
“I printed that off the internet,” the man said.
The deputy told the man he was under arrest for forgery. He took a closer look at the fake tab. It was good work, clearly the product of time and effort.
What was the man’s story?
The man said his wife was sick. She had cancer, and she was undergoing dialysis. The treatment was expensive.
The man said he’d been working at Walmart for four years, trying to keep up with the bills. He’d been driving his wife’s car, but it had broken down, so he tried to resurrect his own rig, which he hadn’t driven since 2011.
He couldn’t afford the registration, he said. He took the tab from his wife’s car, made a copy on photo paper, taped it on to his car’s plate, then added a license plate cover.
“I just wasn’t thinking,” the man said. “I was hoping to last out until I could get my tax return so I could take care of the registration.”
The deputy said if the man had simply driven with expired tabs instead of forging one, he might have gotten off with a warning.
Again, the man hung his head and said he hadn’t been thinking. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of forgery.
Jan. 22: The woman loved her dogs and puppies, but her sister was getting tired of living with the pack.
The dispatch call reported a domestic dispute that had turned physical. Two sheriff’s deputies drove to the 16400 block of 10th Avenue East in Spanaway. They spoke to the sisters. Sister A said Sister B had kicked her dogs and puppies so hard that some had been killed.
Sister A had minor abrasions on her forehead and upper lip. She said the trouble started when Sister B complained about the dogs and started kicking them. The two started fighting, and ended up on the ground, she said. Sister B punched her in the face.
Sister B told a different story. She said she told Sister A to move the dogs to the backyard, but Sister A wouldn’t do it. Sister B grabbed one of the dog crates and started moving it herself. Sister A didn’t like that and tried to stop it, then called 911 to complain that she was being assaulted.
Sister B said she stopped pulling the crate and started sweeping the garage when Sister A threw a litter box at her. That was when they started wrestling, Sister B said. She denied punching Sister A in the face.
Deputies interviewed a witness, a man who backed up Sister B’s account.
The deputies looked at all the dogs and puppies. None appeared to be injured, nor were any of them dead. They decided Sister A was the aggressor, and booked her into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor assault.
Jan. 21: The drunken driver didn’t seem to realize he wasn’t that charming.
Tacoma officers spotted him in a white Ford Explorer, illegally parked in the 4300 block of North 19th Street. The car had been idling for 20 minutes, a 911 caller said.
An officer checked the car and saw a man inside who appeared to be sleeping. The radio was blasting.
She knocked on the window several times. The man didn’t respond.
She opened the door and shook him by the shoulder. The whiff of alcohol and cologne was overpowering. The man, 26, woke.
The officer identified herself and asked the man to turn the radio down. The man fumbled with the dials, but had no luck. The officer reached in and turned it off herself.
She asked the man if he knew where he was.
“No.”
She asked if he’d been drinking. He had. She asked why he’d parked in this spot.
“I don’t know.”
She asked for a driver’s license. He handed her one from Arkansas. She asked if he had one from Washington. He didn’t answer.
Would he take a field sobriety test? He didn’t answer.
A records check revealed that the man’s Washington license was suspended. As the officer gathered more information, he stepped out of the car. He said he needed to get to work soon.
“Ladies, can you just give me a ride home and I will pick up my car by Uber? I can take care of this later.”
The officer told the man he was under arrest and cuffed him.
During booking at the Pierce County Jail, the man told the officer the whole thing could have been handled if she’d just given him a ride home. She ignored him.
He asked how many children she had. She ignored him. She asked if the man would agree to a breath test. The man smiled and asked how she’d gotten into law enforcement.
The officer told the man that non-answers would be interpreted as refusing to take the test. The man asked more personal questions. The officer noted the refusal and the man was booked on suspicion of drunken driving.
This story was originally published January 26, 2019 at 1:34 PM.
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