Police beat: Drunk chicken, bike prowling and an unwanted guest

Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police.

July 22: The recipe for drunk chicken doesn’t include domestic violence — that ingredient tends to ruin the meal for everyone.

The trouble started with a neighbor’s 911 call. The caller reported a fight on the first floor of an apartment building. Officers drove to an address in the 700 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Way. They found a 54-year-old man sitting in the hall of the main entryway with blood on his face.

The dispute was traced to one of the nearby apartments. A witness said a woman pushed the bloody man out the door, but he’d rushed back inside. The witness saw the man shove the woman onto a bed. A younger man stepped between the combatants and punched the older man.

By now, a second officer was talking to the woman. She was 57. The bloody man was her boyfriend. The younger man, 29, was her son.

The woman was screaming that the bloody man had attacked her, and her son had defended her.

Officers cuffed the son temporarily and asked for a statement. He said he’d been in his bedroom when he heard his mother and boyfriend arguing. That was nothing new, the son said — but then he heard crashes, thumping and his mother screaming for help.

The son said he stepped in to break up the fight and punched the boyfriend three times to get him out of the apartment.

Another witness, a friend of the mother’s, was sitting on the couch in the apartment. She said the couple came home drunk, and the boyfriend stomped around the house. The mother was making fried chicken legs when the boyfriend picked up the grease-filled pan, hurled it at the mother and threw her to the floor.

That was when the son stepped out and fought with the boyfriend, the witness said.

The mother’s clothes were soaked with grease, and officers saw the chicken legs scattered across the floor.

The mother said her son acted in her defense, but she didn’t want the boyfriend arrested. She loved him, she said; they’d been together for seven years. She wouldn’t allow forensic photographs, she wouldn’t sign a no-contact order and she declined medical aid.

The boyfriend spoke little English. Officers couldn’t get much from him. He was taken to a local hospital, treated for facial injuries, and cited for misdemeanor assault.

July 22: The weather was ideal for a summer bike ride, but 1:45 a.m. was a little late for a two-wheel tour.

Two officers, rolling on routine patrol near the 2900 block of Sixth Avenue, spotted a pair of late-night cyclists peering into a parked car. They drove into a nearby parking lot and noticed one of the riders was gone. The other was still hovering by the parked car.

The officers walked over. One noticed the rider didn’t have a headlight: not the biggest offense, but a violation. The officer said so.

The man on the bike was 31, and displeased. He argued. The officer looked at his backpack and noticed a hatchet hanging from one of the straps, and the handle of a large knife.

He asked the cyclist for identification. The man refused to give it. The officer told him to put the backpack on the ground.

Next came a frisk. The officer found more knives in the man’s pockets, and removed them.

By this time, the second cyclist, a woman, was back and arguing. The officer told her to move on. She did.

One officer kept talking to the man while the other examined the backpack. The big knife was a Ka-Bar model with a 5-inch blade, a brand favored in military circles.

Inside the backpack, the officer found bolt cutters, hand tools, and an EBT card with the man’s name on it. A quick records check confirmed the man had two outstanding arrest warrants out of Whatcom County.

The man refused to answer questions. The officers booked him into the Pierce County jail on the outstanding warrants.

July 21: The dispatch call reported an unwanted guest. She was 18, candid and destructive.

Officers drove to an address in the 700 block of Commerce Street. The caller let them in. He was 37, and said he’d been assaulted by a female friend who wouldn’t leave.

As officers walked upstairs, they heard what sounded like breaking glass. The man guessed that the woman was throwing his stuff out the window.

Officers found the woman and cuffed her. She identified herself. She was panting, sweating, and had a small scratch near her collarbone.

What happened?

“He just irritates me,” the woman said.

How?

The woman said the man called her names and they were arguing.

“He was in my face, so I put my hands on him,” she said.

What did that mean?

“I slapped him. I pushed him to the ground and beat his face.”

In the background, the man was telling a similar story, saying the woman hit him.

“Sure did!” she said, several times.

She said she met the man two months earlier. She said she’d been staying at the apartment ever since. The man said that wasn’t right; the woman had visited a few times this week.

Officers asked the man if the woman had any belongings. He led them to a box. He pulled an iPad out and said it was his. The woman had put it in the box, he said.

“Sure did!” the woman said.

Another resident said he’d seen the woman off and on at the apartment for the past month, but didn’t know what the relationship was between the two people. Women came and went around here, he added.

The man said he didn’t want medical aid, and didn’t want to write a statement. Officers booked the woman into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of fourth-degree assault and destruction of property.

This story was originally published July 25, 2015 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Police beat: Drunk chicken, bike prowling and an unwanted guest."