Don’t know how many times a cop actually gets to say, “Come out with your hands up. We have you surrounded.” But it would have been appropriate during last night’s police standoff with two men spotted sneaking around the under-construction Joule project at Republican and Broadway this morning around 3:20 AM.
Here’s the tip we received this morning from neighbor Christi:
Have you heard anything about the police response to the construction site at Harvard & Republican around 3:30 this morning?
I live across the street and was woken up by a police loudspeaker, police dogs barking, and lots of squad cars concentrated around the Joule condo site. From what I could tell / see, they were looking for a suspect that apparently tried to hide in the building, but I’m not sure. I can’t find much on this – could you do your usual good investigative work and tell us what the hell happened last night?
The first call for officers to respond around 3:20 AM reported two suspicious men were somewhere inside the project. Two white males in light shirts, one wearing a knit hat, were spotted by video security at the site, according to police radio transmissions.
About ten minutes later, enough police units arrived to surrounded site. Officers held their positions to contain the scene. At 3:37 AM, a cop spotted the two men coming down from the second floor in the middle of the project and K9 unit made its way toward that side of the site chasing the men back up to the second floor. Officers began hailing the two men with a loudspeaker to try to get them to come out of the work site. The men were periodically spotted throughout the two-block development until around 3:45 AM when the K9 unit and officers entered the work site to attempt to take the men into custody. At 3:53 AM, an officer reported the two suspects had been taken into custody. A subsequent search of the buildings turned up no additional suspects.
We’ll check with SPD to see what we can find out about the men who were taken into custody. UPDATE 1:40 PM: SPD confirms that that two men were arrested and tell us both in their early twenties. There was no damage at the site and nothing appeared to be missing. The men were booked into King County Jail for investigation of burglary.
The Joule apartments and townhomes are slated to be open by the end of 2010. We recently reported on the difficulties the project is having filling its more than 20,000 square-feet of retail space.
