Police beat: Blood in a church, a flying burrito and a sleepy intruder

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

April 24: The would-be burglar found nothing in the church but destiny.

The dispatch call reported a possible break-in at a church in the 1300 block of South 84th Street. An officer drove to the scene and spoke to a witness, who said she thought she saw a man smash the glass doors on the south side of the child care building.

Other officers arrived and brought a dog to sniff for trouble. They looked over the entryway and found shards of broken glass in the vestibule, along with spatters of blood that led down a hallway.

The dog loped forward, followed the trail, turned into a room off the hall, came back and barked at the officers. Someone was inside.

The first officer took slow steps along the spatter trail and entered the room.

In the corner, next to an open closet door, a man sat slumped in a pool of blood, his legs spread out, his arms against his sides. He wore a T-shirt, jeans and black socks. He had no shoes. His chin sank against his chest.

The officer came closer. The man was breathing, faintly. The officer checked his pulse. It was weak.

His clothes were bloody. He had cuts on one hand, but the worst wound appeared to be under his right arm.

Officers called for medical aid. One tried to talk to the man, but got no response. Firefighters arrived and started CPR, but the man’s pulse had faded.

They loaded the man into an ambulance, and took him to St. Joseph Medical Center. The attending physician pronounced him dead on arrival. The Pierce County Medical Examiner later confirmed the cause of death as exsanguination: loss of blood.

The man was 37. At the hospital, officers spoke to his brother, who told a story of a possible workplace plot at his dead brother’s job. Perhaps the brother was trying to escape from his co-workers, the brother said.

It was an opinion, but officers had no proof to back it up. The man faded into local statistics: an accidental death.

April 23: The motive for the assault was simple enough — nobody likes a cold burrito.

Officers answered a dispatch call and drove to a convenience store in the 1900 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

They spoke to a store clerk, 42, who said a man attacked her and left the weapon behind. The clerk pointed to it: a mangled, partially wrapped burrito.

The man was about 5 feet 8 inches, 140 pounds and bald, wrapped in a white blanket with a green leaf pattern, she said. He had walked into the store with the burrito in his hand, and asked for permission to use the microwave to heat it up.

The woman explained store policy, she said. The burrito didn’t come from the store, so the store microwave was off-limits.

The man didn’t like that, the woman said. He shouted a curse, called her “white trash” and fastballed the burrito. It missed, but it hit a rack on the checkout counter, knocking over other items.

After that, the man ran. A customer chased him, the clerk said, but the customer wasn’t around.

Officers looked the place over and saw little damage. They checked the area for the blanket-wearing man, but found nothing.

The clerk was still hot; she said she’d be willing to testify against the man if officers found him. Officers told her to call 911 if she saw him again. They left the burrito at the scene.

April 23: The man saw no reason why he couldn’t break into someone’s house to sleep. Sheriff’s deputies saw it differently.

The dispatch call reported a possible break-in at an address in the 22300 block of 139th Avenue Court East. It was about 1:45 a.m. On the way, deputies heard via radio that the suspect had broken the front window of the house.

When they arrived, they found a man lying in the driveway. He gave a name and birth date that didn’t match anything in records. Deputies cuffed the man and put him in a patrol car.

The woman who lived in the house said she had been sleeping when she heard knocking and scratching at the front door. Through the peephole, she yelled at the man to go away, saying he had the wrong house.

The man wouldn’t listen. He banged at the door and demanded to be let in. The woman called 911. As she did, the man started punching at her front window and banged his fist through it.

Deputies looked at the shattered window, and the bent screen.

The man failed to get inside. Nothing had been stolen.

Deputies spoke to him and asked whether he lived at the house. No, the man said.

Why was he trying to break in?

So he could go to sleep, the man said.

He smelled drunk. He said it wasn’t a big deal to break in. All he wanted was a nap. Officers booked him into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of the attempted break-in. At the time of booking, they still didn’t know his name. He was booked as John Doe.

This story was originally published April 30, 2016 at 3:56 PM with the headline "Police beat: Blood in a church, a flying burrito and a sleepy intruder."