The following are selected reports from the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct. They represent the officers’ accounts of the events described.
Christmas Visitor
Just after 1 p.m. on Dec. 26, police responded to a reported burglary at a house in the 3600 block of 29th Avenue West. The homeowner told officers that she had been out of town since about noon on Christmas Eve.
She returned at about 12:30 p.m. on the 26th, and noticed that the back door was unlocked. She also found a bathroom window open, with dry shoe prints on the floor inside. Drawers throughout the house were opened and rummaged through
The homeowner said she wasn’t sure yet if anything had been taken. Police searched the house for fingerprints and other evidence, but found nothing.
Broken Window
Just after 9:30 p.m. on Christmas Day, a woman living in the 1800 block of Warren Avenue North called 911 after returning home to find someone had broken into her house. She told officers she had been away since 10 a.m. the previous day. When she returned on the 25th, she noticed a back window was opened, so she called 911.
Police responded and checked the inside of the house, and found no one inside. They took a look at the back kitchen window, and found the window latch was broken off and lying on the kitchen floor.
Drawers throughout the house were open and rifled through. The back kitchen door was unlocked, suggesting that the burglar exited through that door.
The victim looked through the house and determined two pearl necklaces and a gold solitaire diamond ring were stolen from a jewelry box in the bedroom. The only evidence police found in the house was a dirty footprint on the stairs to the basement.
Hungry Burglar
At approximately 6 p.m. on Christmas Day, police responded to a report of a burglary at a house in the 1000 block of Sixth Avenue North.
One of the residents said he’d been sleeping downstairs between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. that day, when he heard footsteps upstairs. He didn’t think much of it because he has roommates. Later ,when his wife was leaving the home, she noticed that the screen door for the front door was wedged open with a garbage can lid. Additionally, a window in the garage was left open and the garage door was forced open and off the tracks.
The burglar came into the house and cooked a package of frozen chicken in the microwave. He also stole one roommate’s older laptop and a coin jar holding about $5 worth of change.
The burglar also moved some things around on the roommate’s desk.
Stolen Jewelry
Just after 6:30 p.m. on Christmas Day, a man called 911 after returning home to find his house was broken into. He said he and his daughter had been out at the movies from 3:15 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.
When they got home they entered through the garage and immediately noticed there were cabinets open in the kitchen and the refrigerator was standing open. The victim looked through the house and found that drawers in all of the bedrooms were open and rummaged through.
He said several items were missing from his wife’s bedside table, and her jewelry had been rifled through. His wife was out of town, and he could only confirm five pieces of jewelry were missing: two gold necklaces, a pocket watch, a bracelet and an antique watch. He estimated the value of the missing jewelry to be about $3,100.
A bucket was found turned upside down underneath a window on the south side of the house. The lock on the window was broken.
Impatient Driver
Just after 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 22 workers at a construction site near West Galer Street and Thorndyke Avenue West called 911 to report a hit and run on a flagger the previous day. The victim told officers that at 1:45 p.m. on Dec. 21 he’d been directing traffic near the construction site, and had the westbound traffic stopped with his stop sign.
The first car in the line was very impatient, and kept honking and waving his arms. The victim signaled to the driver that he needed to wait. But the driver then began to inch his car forward, bumping the flagger’s sign with his car, then eventually making a right turn around the corner and hitting the victim with the rearview mirror on the driver’s side door.
The victim said he wasn’t injured, but was shaken up from the incident.
Other workers on the site witnessed this event. The suspect was driving a company car, and the victim’s supervisor called the company to find out who the driver was, but that information wasn’t given.
The supervisor gave the information on the company and the car to responding police.
Horrible Neighbors
Just after 1 p.m. on New Year’s Day, police responded to a reported assault in an apartment building in the 1100 block of Harrison Street.
The victim, a resident of the building, said he’d been assaulted by the teenage kids of another resident. He said he’d left his apartment a couple hours earlier to go downstairs to get his newspaper.
On his way down the stairs he encountered the teenagers who were sitting on the stairs, blocking the stairway. He tried to pass them, but while he walked past they began yelling at him. He decided to forego the newspaper and go back upstairs to his apartment, but one of the suspects started following him. She pepper sprayed him in the hallway. The victim still had pepper spray residue on his sweatshirt when police responded.
Responding officers spoke with the suspects and their parents, but they denied involvement in the assault and no arrests were made.
Alarm Trip
At approximately 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 3, police responded to an alarm break at a business in the 500 block of First Avenue North.
Police weren’t sure of which business they were responding too, but found one store that had pry marks on its front door with splintered wood on the ground around the door. The front door was closed and locked but there was merchandise lying on the floor in the store.
They couldn’t get a hold of the business owner, so officers left.
Stolen Safe
Just before 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 2, management of a restaurant on Boston Street called 911 to report an overnight burglary wherein the business’s safe was stolen.
They reported that the burglary took place between 1:50 a.m. and 6 a.m. The burglar forced open a lock box that was hanging the handle on a side entrance door. Once inside, the burglar went upstairs and kicked open an office door. A surveillance video was unhooked, and all video was lost. The burglar used pry tools and a power saw to cut open the safe.
Between $3,000 to $4,000 was stolen from the safe. The suspect left behind his pry tools. Nothing else was stolen in the burglary. Officers dusted for fingerprints, but determined the suspect was likely wearing gloves.
Holiday Burglary
Just after 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 2, a woman living in an apartment in the 1200 block of Queen Anne Avenue North called 911 to report her home was broken into.
She said she was out of town between 3 p.m. on Dec. 21 and 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 2. When she got home, she noticed her front door was damaged. Additionally her bedroom window was open and its screen was sitting on her bed.
The victim told police she believed the suspect exited the apartment through the bedroom window. She said her jewelry box and its contents were gone. She said the box was worth about $20 and the jewelry, all costume, was worth about $500.
Police found pry marks on the frame of the front door, and the interior of the frame was damaged with pieces of wood found on the floor inside. Police searched the apartment for fingerprints including the light switches, since the burglar turned the lights on, but weren’t able to find any.
They searched the building’s front door and lobby for any evidence of how the burglar got into the building, but didn’t find any.