Police Beat: The name game, a meth habit, and a punch

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

Feb. 14: Cops know the name game, but it doesn’t stop people from playing it.

The name game typically involves relatives fairly close in age and appearance. Both relatives might have arrest records; the name game shifts blame with a claim of mistaken identity.

The 25-year-old woman tried it after she was tagged for shoplifting. An officer drove to a retail store in the 1900 block of Union Avenue. The woman was already detained. The officer took charge of her, checked her record and found a pair of prior arrest warrants.

Under questioning, the woman admitted taking items from the store. She said she was very sorry, but she also said there was a mistake: The warrants were for her 23-year-old sister.

The sister happened to be in jail. She had used the woman’s name at the time of her earlier arrest, the woman said, and that created the bureaucratic screwup.

The officer double-checked the warrants on file. They included a notation. It said the warrants were for the woman, and not her sister, “as the two sisters apparently play the name game,” the police report states.

The officer booked the woman into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor theft.

Feb. 12: The Tacoma man said he wanted to kick the meth habit, but his girlfriend didn’t. That was why he locked himself in the bathroom and called 911.

The dispatch calls came from three directions. The first was a neighbor in a unit of the apartment complex in the 700 block of St. Helens Avenue. The neighbor reported the sounds of a fight in another unit.

The second call came from the Tacoma man, who said he locked himself in the bathroom to get away from his girlfriend after she attacked him. The third call came from the girlfriend, who said the boyfriend attacked her.

Officers arrived and spoke to the parties. The boyfriend was 33, the girlfriend 30.

The boyfriend emerged from the bathroom; he looked like he’d been crying. He said he and his girlfriend used meth, but he’d overdosed recently, and it scared him enough to try to kick it.

He said he was sober, but his girlfriend was high, and hadn’t slept for three days. He said he poured himself a bowl of cereal earlier, and talked to the girlfriend about their life together, and how the drugs were ruining it.

The boyfriend said he tried his standard move when things got out of hand — the bear hug. He was 6 feet 4, and his girlfriend was 1 foot shorter. He tried wrapping her up to calm her down, he said, but she flailed and fought, so he took a phone into the bathroom and locked the door.

He pointed to a glass water pipe on the bathroom counter. That was the tool, he said.

Where was the meth?

The man pointed to a green tin in the bathroom cabinet, labeled “Mentos Pure Fresh.” The officer opened it and found crystal crumbs.

The boyfriend was upset. He wanted his girlfriend to get help.

Did she assault him?

She tried, the man said — tried to clock him with a beer glass. Officers found it in the apartment.

Another officer spoke to the girlfriend. She said the man choked her until she couldn’t breathe, and pushed her down the stairs. She said she was bleeding from the back of her head.

Officers looked the woman over. They found no wounds on the back of her head or her neck. They saw no injuries to her arms or legs.

They showed her the Mentos tin. The woman said she didn’t know what it was or where it came from. Maybe one of her friends left it.

Officers made a judgment call, and decided the woman was the aggressor. They booked her into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor assault.

Feb. 12: The man didn’t want to take his meds, and anybody who tried to make him was going to get punched.

Officers responded to a reported assault at a mental health evaluation and treatment center in the 700 block of South Fawcett Avenue. The man was already in restraints when they arrived.

They spoke to a shift nurse, who said the man punched another nurse in the face. The other nurse had been talking to the man about taking his medicine.

Several staff members surrounded the man and corralled him, but one of them had hit his head on the floor during the struggle.

The shift nurse trembled as she spoke to officers; she said she’d never been as scared at work as she’d been today. Another staffer said the man had said he wanted to hit everybody today, and wanted to punch the nurse again.

The nurse who’d been punched was being treated at a nearby hospital. Officers spoke to her. The nurse said the man had been challenging her throughout the shift about taking his meds. He took them, then stared at her, walked across the room, shouted a curse and threw a punch at her head. She couldn’t remember much more. Other workers told her the man hit her several times.

Officers spoke to the man. He was 24. Officers read him his rights. He said he didn’t understand them, and “thought they should be different,” the report states.

He admitted he didn’t want to take his medicine, and got angry at the nurse for insisting. Officers booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of misdemeanor assault.

This story was originally published February 20, 2016 at 4:41 PM with the headline "Police Beat: The name game, a meth habit, and a punch."