Sumner Police Blotter, Aug. 25 - 30

August 25

Wire, Metal Theft

7:22am: The foreman for Auburn Commercial Development called Sumner police regarding theft of items from his construction site at 1700 45th St. E. He showed police where unknown suspects had pulled up hundreds of feet of wiring on both sides of the roadway. The wiring was for an irrigation system. Numerous batter powered timers for the irrigation system and a fire hydrant water flow meter had also been stolen. The foreman was going to question his workers to see if they knew anything abut the theft, based on the fact that the gate remained locked and inaccessible. The estimated damage was $2,000.

August 26

DUI

11:50am: Officers were dispatched to the Shell Station on a report of a DUI at 24th St. E. The reporting party said that a white Ford Ranger pickup had been swerving all over the roadway and had almost hit numerous vehicles. He said the suspect car pulled into a warehouse complex in the 3000 block of 142nd Ave. E.

As the person was describing the incident, they witnessed several vehicles pull out of the warehouse area and the witness said, “there he goes.” Officers followed the vehicles and had to reach a high level of acceleration to catch up to them.

Finally they contacted the driver, who immediately started talking about how he was angry that someone rolled his window down and he couldn’t get it to go back up. The officer asked the man if he had been drinking and he replied, “you better just lock me up, because I got a knife and you’re staring to piss me off.”

The officer threw open the man’s door and made him exit the vehicle. The man began cursing after he was handcuffed and said “I’m south side... I stab people for fun, this ain’t s***.” Officers found a pocket knife clipped to his front waistband.

The man’s vehicle was impounded and he was sent to Puyallup Jail for processing. He told police before they took his BAC that, “I just wanna know what I blow, I know I’m f**** up.” His BAC returned .123 and .118. He was cited for DUI.

Malicious Mischief

4:51pm: A witness called to say he saw a man break a steam valve to flatten the tire of his parked Jeep on 1201 Valley Ave. The man admitted he cut the steam valve and said he did it with pliers.

The witness said he had never met the man before, that he had pulled up next to him in the parking lot and the man started yelling at him. He said when he came back to his car he found that the man had flattened his tire. The front passenger tire was completely flat. The man was arrested and police located a large pair of lineman’s pliers and wire cutters tucked into his sock. The man admitted to drinking a couple beers earlier in the day. He was booked at Puyallup Jail and cited for malicious mischief.

Wire theft

10:36pm: A man called Sumner police to report that he saw three male juveniles jump over the fence of a construction site at . They all had backpacks on and were headed toward Meade-McCumber Rd. E.  Officers were aware of a construction site nearby that had been the victim of several burglaries. There had also been a number of wire thefts around the city. The construction site was surrounded by a chain link fence, about six feet high with locked gates.

They couldn’t locate anyone near the site, but about 10 minutes later they saw three juveniles with backpacks walking northbound on the 700 block of Valley Ave. Two of them wore backpacks and another carried a suitcase. The juveniles said they were coming from a friend’s house in Orting, to one of the JUV mother’s apartment in Sumner. They were acting very nervous and it became apparent that they were trying to hide something. One of the males finally admitted they went inside the fence at the school and took some wire, and that all of their bags contained wire.

They had stolen heavy gauge wire and lighter wire. One of them had a knife in his front pocket.

One of the boys said they had all come up with the idea together and they took wire “hanging down” at the school. They planned to sell the metal but did not have anyone in mind to do that for them. They said it was “one of the first times they did this” but later said it was the first time ever. When further questioned, one of the boys admitted that a 30 year-old acquaintance told them how to cut and sell the wire, and that the plan was to have a person sell it to a scrap yard. They would give the man who helped them sell it a cut, but the majority would be split between the three boys.

The wire owner, Pease and Sons, said they 60 pounds of wire stolen were worth about $250.

August 28

Yard Ornament Theft

9:43am: Officers contacted a resident on Guptil Ave. for a report of theft of his yard ornament. The man said that at sometime in the evening, unknown persons removed a lighted brass mushroom statue from his yard. The man had an extensive surveillance system and said he was able to see a male dressed in blue jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt come into his yard at 4 a.m., rip the wires from the statue and remove it. There are no suspects.