The following are selected reports from the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct. They represent the officers’ accounts of the events described.
Strange Burglary
At approximately 1:45 p.m. on July 17, police responded to a restaurant in the 3200 block of 15th Avenue West.
The restaurant manager reported that someone pried the back door open sometime between 9 p.m. the previous night and 9 a.m. that morning.
All of the cash was taken out of the cash register and thrown onto the ground. However, he told officers that no money was missing. Nothing was taken from the inside of the restaurant, although a storage closet was pried open. The phone lines and an electrical box near the back door had been tampered with.
Police believe the suspect was attempting to cut the security alarm line.
Storage Unit Racket
Just after 9:15 a.m. on July 17, police responded to a reported burglary at a storage facility in the 3000 block of 15th Avenue West.
An employee told police there had been a string of burglaries over the past month, and they believed it was linked to a renter. The burglaries began around the middle of June, when the suspect first began renting a unit.
Based on reviewing who had been in and out of the building around the times of the burglaries, they were certain it was the suspect, who vacated his unit on July 16. The victim of the latest burglary stated the lock was still in place on his unit, but the suspect was able to pry the door open enough to slide some sort of tool in and get items out. He reported $3,000 worth of electronic musical instruments were taken.