• Drugs, guns and bbq on Summit: A Sunday night Summit Ave bbq ended in chaos as a man threatened people with a sawed-off shotgun and had the weapon wrestled away from him, witnesses tell police. Officers responded to the 1700 block of Summit Ave Sunday night to a report that a man with a shotgun was pointing the gun at bystanders and was now in a fight over the weapon. Another call reported that a different man was now walking away with the gun northbound on Summit.

Officers arrived to find a male lying in the street with his head and shoulders covered in blood and “puddles of blood on the pavement around him.” The man had been severely beaten and had lacerations above his eye and on his head. The man was transported to Harborview for treatment of his injuries.

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A witness told police that a group was having a bbq in the area when three males joined the party. At some point, a black town car arrived at the scene and a “heated” verbal argument ensued between a passenger and one of the men at the bbq. 30 minutes later, the witness said a man who appeared to have been the occupant of the town car returned carrying the shotgun.

As the men from the bbq approached the man with the shotgun, he began pointing the weapon at them and yelling, the witness said. Bystanders scrambled and found safety in nearby doorways along the street as the men attempted to calm the armed man down. The witness said the men attempted to get the man to put the gun down and when that didn’t work, the trio “swarmed” the man and the fight described by 911 callers ensued.

The men told police they had never met the shotgun toting man before and feared for their life, beating the man to removed the gun from his possession. One man told police he beat the man with the shotgun after wrestling it away from him.

According to the report, victims in the incident told officers they didn’t know where the gun ended up during the fight. After a search, officers found the weapon hidden in a bush near Summit and Howell. “The weapon recovered was a sawed off Remington 870 shotgun with a metal barrel and wooden butt stock,” the report notes. 

Police took the three men in the incident into custody for further questioning. In a subsequent search, police say 2.8 grams of cocaine in small baggies inside an Altoids container were found in the pocket of one of the men. He was booked for investigation of drug possession. The man who allegedly brought the shotgun to the bbq initially was not arrested.

• Drop the skateboard! Get on the ground! — An officer working the Block Party beat intervened in a fight that spilled onto the street near E Pine and Nagle early Sunday morning, saving one man from a (more) severe skateboard beating and arresting another for assault. From the the SPD report on the 2a Sunday morning incident:

I observed XXX raise a YEL skateboard with both hands, bring the raised skateboard back around over his RT shoulder, and strike XXX across the head.  XXX fell to the ground, and I then watched raise the skateboard again with both hands over his RT shoulder and again strike in the head while was on the ground

“Police! Police! Drop the skateboard! Get on the ground!,” the officer said he shouted.

Witnesses told police the man was angry because the beating victim assaulted the suspect’s girlfriend when he “lifted her shirt to expose her breasts” — the suspect “took offense to some of the comments made by that action,” witnesses told police.

The suspect told police he attacked the suspect because his girlfriend had been verbally threatened. The girlfriend, though highly intoxicated according to the report, corroborated his story. The suspect was arrested and booked into jail on investigation of assault. The victim declined medical treatment.

• MMJ rip-off at CHBP? In another incident on the periphery of Block Party, the Slog has details of an alleged theft/confiscation of medical marijuana by security staff at the festival: “…the security guard continued to search the bag, Whittle says, and eventually confiscated approximately eight grams of cannabis worth around $80 and refused to give it back.”
• Woman said to be prolific Safeway thief busted on Capitol Hill: A “prolific shoplifter” reportedly trespassed from all “Safeways in the Seattle area” was busted at the 15th and John grocery store Sunday night when she allegedly attempted to leave the store with a shopping cart full of groceries and liquor. According to the report on the incident, the woman was caught trying to leave the store with the groceries and “several bottles of liquor” just after 8p. Police say, after she was arrested, the woman said she was stealing the booze for somebody “waiting in the parking lot.” She was booked into jail for investigation of burglary.