The following are based on incident reports from the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct. They represent the officers’ accounts of the events described.
Just after 4 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, officers responded the 1700 block of East Alder Street after a woman reported hearing a loud noise coming from the street below her apartment. She looked down and saw a man inside a parked car. He was bent down under the dashboard, and she heard the noises when he started breaking the steering column apart. He was pulling so hard on the column that the car was rocking up and down. The suspect was also seen opening the trunk and was still rooting around the trunk when officers arrived. He was immediately detained. Officers found two screwdrivers and a flashlight in his pocket. They looked in the car and saw the ignition dangling from the steering column by its wires. The man was arrested and read his Miranda rights. He said the trunk was open when he walked by and denied being inside the car, calling the witness a liar. He was later booked into King County Jail. Damage to the car was estimated to be in excess of $1,000.
Drugs etc.
At 9:25 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, officers on routine patrol received a call that a female suspect with an outstanding felony warrant had been spotted leaving a bar near the 1200 block of East Jefferson Street. The word was that she’d gotten into a car as a passenger, and the car took off east along Jefferson. Officers caught up with the car on the 1800 block of East Jefferson Street and pulled it over. The female passenger immediately identified herself and acknowledged that she knew there was a warrant out for her arrest. Prior to re-arrest, she was asked if she had any contraband on her. She said she had an “8-ball of cream” on her; officers recognized the term as street vernacular for crack cocaine. A search was conducted, and officers recovered two small plastic bags containing a rock-like substance in her pants. The substance later tested positive for cocaine. The woman, who is in her late 20s, was arrested and booked into King County Jail.
At 9:15 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, officers responded to an East Alder Street house after a woman reported that someone had broken into her house. She told officers that she and her roommate left for work in the morning and came back home to discover that someone had pried the screen off a side window and gained entry. Once inside, the suspect (s) took a laptop computer, a cell phone charger and a bowl with about $20 in coins in it. It appeared the perpetrator left through the same window. A neighbor told officers that a lot of people came and went to the house. She added that she saw a car arrive at the house at around 8 in the morning. It stayed for a few minutes then left. Such behavior, she said, occurred about every two days.
At 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 16, officers responded to the Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library after learning that someone had sprayed graffiti on one of the library’s signs. That person had spray painted the letters TFS on a sign which has the library’s name and logo on it. Other letters or symbols had been sprayed as well but officers were unable to identify them. Officers photographed the sign and left a business card and a case number with the library. The cost for supplies and labor to repair the damage were estimated to be $50.
More graffiti
On Sept. 15 at 4:10 a.m. officers responded to Seattle University’s Connelly Center after campus security called 911 to report a graffiti incident. A suspect had used black spray paint to write the letters SNLE along the east side of the building. Security thought the incident occurred between midnight and 2:30 in the morning. Officers photographed the graffiti. But since the university doesn’t have security cameras pointed at the east side of the Connelly Center, there were no suspects.
