Bainbridge blotter | Talking trash

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Selected reports from the Bainbridge Island Police Department blotter.

SATURDAY, OCT. 22

3:34 p.m. Police responded to a dispute between neighbors at an apartment complex on High School Road.

A 44-year-old woman, a tenant in the building, said a woman who was visiting another resident threatened her while she was outside with her young child.

The other woman, from Poulsbo, claimed it was the Bainbridge woman who first threatened her while she was taking out the trash. She said the antagonism stemmed from her having testified on behalf of the respondents in a recent protection order hearing in which the island woman was the plaintiff.

Police suggested the two ignore each other, if possible.

4:37 p.m. A 33-year-old Oregon man was brought several times to the attention of island police for suspicious behavior. The man was reported in the area of Grow Avenue and High School Road, looking into mailboxes and residences with the apparent intent of stealing something.

A resident followed the man after calling police and told him to leave the area. This angered the man into an altercation and the two men pushed each other a bit before the suspicious man from Oregon left in an eastern direction.

Police arrived and the man said somebody had been harassing and pushing him. The man was detained after it was explained he was suspected of possibly illegal activity. The island resident, by phone, said he had no interest in pursuing charges but wanted the police to deal with the Oregon man.

After speaking with him, police uncuffed the Oregon man and offered him a bottle of water, as he’d said he was thirsty. He denied going through mailboxes and claimed the island resident had asked him if he wanted a ride and then suddenly yelled at him to leave. The man was released.

Three hours later a woman called police to report a suspicious man attempting to steal mail at a location within walking distance of the first report. The description was similar to the man from Oregon.

Earlier in the day police had responded to a report of a man crying on the sidewalk. It was the Oregon man, who said he needed help finding this friend’s home. Police drove the man around, but he was unable to locate it. His story kept changing as well, saying sometimes that his friends had left him at the casino and other times that their car had been impounded. He first said they lived near Eagle Harbor and later Battle Point Park. He then said that his friends actually came on a visit from Oregon with him.

He had no other contacts on the island and then decided he would meet his friends in downtown Seattle. Police dropped him off at the ferry terminal, gave him some snacks and a bottle of water, and left him to board.

He did not, however, get on the boat. Police saw him near the terminal later and he said he’d missed the last boat because he’d wanted to smoke a cigarette and would catch the next one. He did not, however, board that boat either.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 19

11:55 a.m. A 73-year-old Bainbridge woman driving a 2006 Lexus RX struck a deer while traveling south on Highway 305 from Sportsman Club Road.

The deer landed in a ditch on the side of the highway and died immediately. The woman, uninjured, was able to drive her car away.

3:28 p.m. A North Madison Avenue homeowner contacted police regarding a suspicious phone call. A man had, she said, contacted her to make an appointment to clean the home’s heating ducts. When informed that she already had a company she used for that service, the man told the homeowner that his business, “Green Air Cleaning,” contracts jobs from the business she uses. The man sounded convincing and so the woman made an appointment.

Having second thoughts, the woman called the business that usually cleans her ducts and discovered they do not contract with any such company. She then called the police.

The man had asked for no money or personal information beyond confirming her name and phone number, she said. But the woman was worried because the day after the scheduled cleaning appointment she and her husband were slated to be out of town.