The following are selected reports from the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct. They represent the officers’ accounts of the events described.
Mugged
A man called 911 at 2:50 a.m. on Feb. 1 to report he’d been mugged twice in the 500 block of Mercer Street.
Police arrived to find the man intoxicated and unable to give them any description of his muggers. He said the muggings had taken place on two separate occasions over the last couple of hours, and that the second mugger took his cell phone.
He told police he was afraid to be alone and requested a ride to a bus stop.
Meds thief
A woman in the 2400 block of Birch Avenue North walked into the West Precinct on Feb. 3 to report that, sometime between 1:30 and 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 1, someone entered her unlocked home and stole a bottle of prescription medication. Nothing else was taken.
She wasn’t home at the time.
Stolen tools
Construction workers at a site in the 400 block of Eighth Avenue North reported to police that, sometime over the weekend of Jan. 24 through 26, someone cut the padlock on a large metal cargo container that held tools. A toolbox containing drills and a saw was taken.
Stolen laptops
The property manager of several large office buildings on Elliott Avenue West called 911 on Jan. 23 at 2:30 p.m. to report he had video of a burglar entering two of his buildings, where laptops were stolen. A laptop was stolen from each building.
There is security video of the same person going in through a secured door, after an employee exits. However, there is no video of the person stealing the laptop.
Moving in
The maintenance employee of a building in the 3200 block of 21st Avenue West called 911 at 11:57 a.m. on Jan. 22 to report multiple break-ins to a storage unit in the building, stating it looked like a homeless person had been living there. He said the door had been pried open since the last time he was down there, three days before.
The last time the unit was pried open, he added a deadbolt and painted the door. The morning of the report, while getting supplies from the storage unit, he found numerous items that did not belong there, including a small box of apple-scented barbecue briquettes and a black backpack. The backpack contained needles, hygiene products, four cell phones, old clothes, two prescription bottles and more.
The maintenance employee also pointed out that a long machete knife had been moved, and he was concerned the burglar may have been planning to use it had he been caught.
He said, during previous break-ins, he’d found a portable space heater had been plugged in and moved. He’d also found wet socks and wet underwear hanging up to dry inside the storage unit. He suspected the burglar might have stolen some keys to the unit door during this or previous burglaries.
Police didn’t have any idea how the burglar is getting into the storage unit or the building.
The prescription bottles had a name on them, so police are trying to track down some information on that name.
Ransacked home
A man in the 3000 block of 37th Avenue West called 911 on Jan. 22 to report that his home had been broken into. He said he left at 10 a.m. and returned at 7:20 p.m. to find a camera bag lying on the floor.
As he started looking around, he discovered that his bedroom had been ransacked. He then found the patio door shattered.
Another resident returned to find her bedroom ransacked. The burglar rummaged through all of her drawers, stealing all of her gold jewelry and leaving all her silver jewelry behind.
Also taken were $300 cash, a laptop, a video-game unit and a tablet computer.
Stolen bike
A woman in the 200 block of West Comstock Street called 911 to report her bicycle was stolen from a common room.
Police responded at 9:48 p.m. on Jan. 27. The victim said her bicycle hadn’t been locked but was hanging from a hook on the ceiling. The last time she had used it was about two weeks before. She said she noticed it was missing about three days ago but waited to report it on the chance that a neighbor had borrowed it.
She said she walks through the room pretty regularly but doesn’t pay attention to whether her bike is there, so she can’t give an accurate time for when it went missing.
Police advised her to make sure she locks her bike if she gets a new one.