The Bainbridge Island Police Department sees its fair share of odd incidents every year. The Review has selected some of the most outlandish, bizarre and bewildering items of 2013 in an abridged version of its popular weekly report, the Police Blotter.
Saturday, Feb. 2
1:31 a.m. A woman living on North Madison Avenue called police after she was awoken by harassing text messages. The texts continued all night and did not stop. She told officers that she had recently gotten into an argument with a friend from Bremerton who may have been responsible for the messages. While she was talking with police, the messages continued to arrive. “You smell like fish,” one message said. “You a slut, get a life (expletive),” another stated. Police called the number and left a voicemail saying that the texts amounted to harassment and requested that they stop. Police advised that the woman turn her phone off for the night.
Officers called the number again later that day. A Bremerton woman answered and said she sent the texts, but used a function on her phone she had never used before. The function sent the same texts over and over again. She did not know how many times the messages were sent, and she didn’t know how to stop it. The woman said she sent the text for a friend. The island woman who received the calls knew both Bremerton women.
Sunday, Feb. 3
4:34 a.m. Suquamish police notified Bainbridge officers about a man known for having three warrants for his arrest. An officer was dispatched to Clearwater Casino to apprehend the man. The man was found at the slot machines.
An officer asked the man if he knew that he had warrants. The man replied, “Yeah, you caught me.”
He was arrested.
Sunday, March 10
9:09 p.m. An employee of the Town & Country Market said a teenage boy walked into the store, grabbed a 12-pack of Bud Light beer, and then walked downstairs to the lower level of the store. He then walked out the lower exit. The incident was caught on security cameras.
Employees saw the license plate of the young man’s truck as he drove away. Using the license plate information, police went to the address where the vehicle was registered.
Police found the young man, 18, and his mother at home. The teen said that he was short on gas money and another teenager asked him to steal beer for $15 and give it to them behind the store. But no one was behind the store after the theft, so he left. He didn’t want to keep the beer so he threw it into a ditch on New Brooklyn Road.
Police could not locate the beer anywhere in the ditch. The teen was cited for theft and minor in possession of alcohol.
10:18 p.m. A woman was pulled over on Fletcher Bay Road after police observed her speeding, screeching her wheels to stop and drifting in and out of the lane. The woman said she had a couple of beers to drink. When police asked her where she had the beers she replied, “You know.”
Police asked the woman to take roadside sobriety tests. She asked for her lawyer. Police said she was not under arrest, so she agreed to begin the tests. She fell out of the car and then complained that the gravel on the roadway made the test unfair. She also fell after attempting to walk heel-to-toe. She then refused to take anymore tests and asked for her lawyer again.
After refusing to take a portable breath test she was placed under arrest. At the station she became defiant and said she wanted her lawyer but didn’t remember his name. She refused to accept a public defender. She wanted to call her parents, but officers told her “no.”
When officers attempted to contact the attorneys she asked for, they were not available. Police reports noted that the woman then became “arrogant and snippy.” She was then transported to the county jail.
While en route to the jail, she insisted that people drink at island restaurants and drive drunk all the time and that she “was going to beat this.” She was booked into the jail where she continued to refuse to take a breath test or sign her Miranda rights paperwork.
Tuesday, May 21
2:38 a.m. A resident on Renny Lane called 911 after hearing someone around their house and finding the back door open. Officers soon found a man sitting in a car near the home. The man said he was waiting for someone at a home down the street. Later that morning, neighbors encountered the man sleeping on their front porch. The man left the area after a resident came outside with a shotgun. Police caught up with the man in his truck. The man told officers that he had not been drinking and was not taking any drugs. He said he was trying to find a woman he met at a bar three months ago. The man told officers he could not provide any information at the time when he was asked more specific questions. He was arrested.
Friday, May 31
8:10 p.m. Police were called for an “inappropriate and explicit” picture spray painted on High School Road. Officers found graffiti sprayed on the road stating “2013 Hoover” accompanied by a 10-foot-long graphic depiction of male genitalia. The city’s public works department was called to wash it off the street.
Friday, June 7
8:43 a.m. A man living on Point Monroe Drive became angry at his neighbor, insisting that he did not have proper permits for work on his property. The man then stood in front of a truck that had arrived to deliver a load of sand and prevented it from completing its delivery. The man then laid down in the road where the pile of sand was to be dumped.
Officers checked with city employees who verified that the work was permitted and legal.
The man was notified and left the scene.
Sunday, June 9
5:55 a.m. A Fort Ward man reported a series of suspicious incidents that occurred over the past few weeks. First, a tire on his car, as well as one on his wife’s vehicle, were flat from nails at exactly the same place.
Then a nearby stop sign was vandalized with spray paint. The words “Don’t” and “Poop” were written on it.
They also discovered feces outside their bedroom window. They believe it came from a human.
7:29 p.m. An apartment resident on High School Road called police after his neighbor threw strawberry shortcake at him. The incident occurred while multiple neighbors were eating together in a common area. The man came outside, picked up various toys, walked up to a little girl and told her to “keep your [expletive] out of my yard.” He told police that he frequently found her toys in front of his apartment.
Soon, the girl’s mother knocked on the man’s door and yelled at him for what he did, using “unflattering gay slurs.” Later, in the common area with their neighbors, the two began arguing again. She told the man to get off her yard and threw strawberry shortcake at him.
Police informed the two that the common area was nobody’s yard.
Saturday, July 6
8:14 a.m. Residents reported a suspicious man on a bicycle on Koura Road. Police asked the man to stop on the side of the road, but he said “no way” and sped off. The man on the bicycle led two patrol cars on a chase through the neighborhood. The man ultimately ditched the bike and fled into the Grand Forest. Officers found the bike but did not find the suspicious man.
Officers discovered that the bike was stolen and returned it to its owner on Koura Road. Police responded to the same area one hour later when a resident on Miller Road found a young man in his back yard “acting crazy.” The resident said the young man kept screaming he was a drug abuser, then climbed over his fence.
The young man “climbed and vaulted the tall fence like he was Spider-man,” the resident told police.
Thursday, Aug. 1
12:37 p.m. A Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office deputy requested island back-up after pulling over a car with a raging driver on Madison Avenue and Highway 305. The deputy witnessed the driver stop his car in the middle of the road, jump out and run after an SUV.
The driver said he was mad because of the SUV’s speed. The driver aggressively complained to the deputy about how police officers drive. Officers discovered that the man has a record of aggressive behavior and prior road rage incidents.
Officers told the man he could not leave his car in the middle of the roadway. The man calmed down and agreed to call police in the future.
9:01 p.m. Police responded to a domestic dispute on the north end of the island where a couple were loudly arguing. The argument began when the boyfriend chased the girlfriend with a crab earlier that day. She told officers he was being annoying and a verbal dispute grew from there.
Saturday, Aug. 10
9:20 a.m. A woman went to her boyfriend’s house near Battle Point Park and found him in bed with two other women. She began screaming at the three, but the two women were intoxicated, and the man was so intoxicated he barely responded. The girlfriend pulled one woman out of the bed onto the floor. She flipped the mattress over, tossing the other woman on the floor, who then called 911. The girlfriend insisted that she was still together with the boyfriend, but the two women contested that account. Police could not speak with the man, however, as he ran out the back of the residence. The girlfriend called his cell phone so he could talk to police. He sounded drunk and said he did not want to deal with the situation or police. Police determined that a domestic violence situation did not occur and left the scene.
Friday, Aug. 23
2:37 p.m. A process server told police he was assaulted while attempting to serve court documents to a Bainbridge resident. According to the employee, this was the second attempt to serve the papers. In the first attempt, the employee contacted the resident at his home. He waited on the sidewalk in front of the house until it became apparent that the resident had snuck out of a side door.
The resident ran to his vehicle and, the process server claimed, drove at a high speed toward the employee. The employee did not report this particular incident, but said if he had not jumped out of the way he would have been hit by the car.
In the second attempt, the employee stated that he hid in bushes approximately 50 yards from the driveway of the resident. When the resident came out to his car, the employee ran toward him and handed the papers over, advising him he had been served.
The employee explained, that after he turned to walk away, the resident became very upset and at one point told his dog to, “Sic ‘em.” He then ran up behind the employee, flailed his arms in the air, and grabbed the back of the employee’s shirt.
The employee turned and advised him to stop his assault.
Sunday, Sept. 1
9:11 a.m. Officers responded to a report of assault at an island apartment complex. Upon arrival, the victim was found standing in the parking lot with a Steel Reserve beer can in his hand. Officers have had previous encounters with the man and concluded he was intoxicated.
The man told officers that he had been allowing a friend to stay with him and was considering making the friend his roommate. However, the previous night, the friend entered the apartment without permission and pummeled him in the arms, head, crotch and right leg. Officers asked if he had any injuries. The man said there were none, but he hurt all over.
He rejected the need for an aid car and told officers he was self-medicating. The man lifted his beer can and winked. Then he told officers he needed someone to buy him more beer as he had only three cans left, and he couldn’t borrow from the last person who helped him out.
Wednesday, Oct. 16
11 a.m. Police were called to Safeway on a report of a man in a motorized wheelchair who had launched a grocery cart onto the hood of a woman’s car. The owner of the car told officers she was putting her groceries inside her vehicle and placing her child in her car seat, when she apparently blocked the walkway with the grocery cart.
While she was busy with her groceries and child, a man operating a motorized wheelchair came up the walkway and ran into the grocery cart. The cart was thrown onto the hood of the car and came to rest on the ground nearby. It left a mark and a small dent. The car owner turned and yelled at the man, but he appeared to be ignoring her and continued on his way.
Officers tracked the man down at Island Health and Rehab. He told officers he had just been at the Safeway and bumped into the cart to move it out of the way. He apparently did not realize he had launched it.
Police found that he was profoundly deaf and had to speak loudly to communicate with the man. They concluded that due to this, he would not have heard the cart crash into the car nor the woman yelling at him from a distance.
Sunday, Nov. 17
4:38 p.m. Police were dispatched to a south island neighborhood on a report of a physical fight between two dog walkers. One of the women told officers that she was walking her dog when suddenly two golden retrievers came running at her, without a leash.
The owners, an older couple believed to be in about their 60s, tried to call the dogs back but they did not comply. The woman then told officers that the retrievers tried to bite her and her small dog so she kicked them in the head. The other woman who was the owner of the retrievers became upset at this and ran up to the dog walker. She called her an obscene name and began to swing at her.
At that point, the two began hitting each other, “girl style.” No injuries were reported nor observed.
Monday, Dec. 2
3:46 p.m. A Suquamish man reported a harassment incident on Bainbridge Island. The man told police that he had hired a Poulsbo man to do work on his boat in the last year. However, the man did not complete the job correctly and additional outside labor was required to fix the job the man had botched. In July, the boat owner began receiving emails from the employee that contained derogatory language, such as “douche” and “I fart in your general direction.”
The employee demanded money for the work. The harassment intensified when on Nov. 25, the boat owner said he found “I kill you” written on a dirty window at his wife’s place of work, a downtown Bainbridge restaurant. The employee was seen at the restaurant that day, while the boat owner’s wife was at work.
Saturday, Dec. 14
4:15 p.m. Police were dispatched to an island residence on a report that a wife had slapped her husband. When police arrived at the home, they found the man crying in a fetal position in the middle of the living room. The husband was at the house visiting their infant daughter.
The woman told police that he had the baby in his arms when he started to walk toward the door. She believed he was going to leave with their daughter so she walked in front of the door to stop him. At this point, her father came into the room and told the husband to put the baby down and leave the house.
According to the wife, it was after this that he put the baby down, fell into a fetal position on the floor and called 911. In contrast, the husband told officers that he had turned away from his wife when she came at him with a wild look. She then slapped him on the back of his right shoulder, to which he fell into a fetal position on the floor out of fear.
There were no signs of redness or injury. The wife and father both believe this is an act for the husband to get something on record for the divorce proceedings.
