MAY 3, 2012
HIT AND RUN, NEGLIGENT DRIVING
A citizen called to report damage to a fence on the 15100 block of Elm St. There was damage to a street sign at the intersection of Elm St and E. Valley Highway, with signs of a collision around a large landscape rock at the Sumner Square Apartments just north of the intersection. There was also damage along a stretch of black chain fence boarding the nearby retention pond.
Earlier that night, Bonney Lake Police reported a damaged and abandoned Honda was found at the intersection of Sumner-Buckley Highway and Angeline Rd. The car appeared to have been involved in a hit and run.
The Sumner officer went to Bonney Lake with a piece of car he recovered from the scene. The piece fit like a puzzle piece with part missing from the Honda. There were also pieces of the chain link fence embedded in the vehicle. It had 3 flat tires and there was a woman’s purse on the floor of the backseat.
Police went to the address of the registered car owner, who the purse belonged to. The house was about two miles away from where the car was abandoned and it pointing in that direction. No one came to the door and police contacted the woman on her cell phone and left a message.
A tow truck arrived and a man called police. He said that the car was his daughter’s and it had a flat tire and needed to be towed. He told the officer he was driving down the street and saw her car there around 5 a.m. She told him she lost control and hit a curb.
Later the next day, the woman called police and said she was driving home from a friends’ house that night, fell asleep at the wheel and hit a sign. She said the reason she didn’t contact them before was because she felt "really scared" and assumed her father would take care of it.
The woman was charged with hit and run and negligent driving, second degree.
MAY 4, 2012
DUI
An officer was traveling eastbound on 64th St E. behind a Dodge Dakota that had a rear license plate light out. The officer put on his lights and the vehicle slowed, coming to a stop after a few more blocks in the middle of the three-way intersection at the Winco parking lot and Riverside Ford. The officer asked the man why he stopped in the middle of the intersection and the man looked confused. The officer smelled alcohol but the man said neither he nor his wife, who was in the passenger seat, had been drinking.
The man agreed to do a sobriety test. His wife was extremely intoxicated and upset with the officers. The man kept denying that he had been drinking but failed the sobriety test.
Officers towed the car and the man was arrested for DUI. His alcohol level was double the legal limit when taken at the station. His wife called a friend to pick her up.
MAY 5, 2012
DISORDERLY CONDUCT
Sumner units were dispatched to the 1400 block of Mason St. for the sounds of two males fighting. The caller said she could see some pushing and shoving from her window and one of the men was highly intoxicated. The other man was trying to get the man to go back into his house.
Police arrived on the street and found a 55 year-old man face down in the intersection of Mason St. and Wood Ave. The other man was lying on his back with his hands under his head in the intersection.
With the officers present, the intoxicated man went to fight his neighbor and an officer stepped in between them. The man then took two very big swings at the officer. Because of the man’s intoxication level, the swings were very slow and he had time to move out of the way and get the man in custody.
He told police that he and the other man, his neighbor, had been drinking at his house for a mini Cinco De Mayo party. He said the man got extremely drunk and he started walking him back to his house when his neighbor "flipped." He started yelling at the man and swinging his fists, trying to fight him.
The man was cited with disorderly conduct.
ILLEGAL PARKING OUTSIDE CINCO DE MAYO HOUSE PARTY, MINOR INTOXICATED IN PUBLIC
Officers responded to the 3100 block of West Valley Highway for a report of a parking issue related to a house party in the area. The house party was in Edgewood jurisdiction bordering Sumner and there were about 75 cars parked in the roadway. They were parked along the shoulder where there is no room for vehicle parking. The area is industrial, with frequent semi-truck traffic and the cars were causing a hazardous road situation.
Pierce County Deputies told the homeowner that cars illegally parked might be ticketed or impounded. The homeowner then shut the gate to the property.
In all, nine vehicles were towed. Some drivers came out to get their cars and were required to pass a sobriety test before moving them. All other vehicles illegally parked but not obstructing traffic were given parking infractions.
A 16 year-old came out to move her car, which was pointed in the wrong direction. She appeared drunk with bloodshot eyes and slowed speech. She demanded a breath test after the police wouldn’t let her move her car, to prove she was sober. Her blood alcohol content was over double the legal limit. She was taken to the police station and charged with being a minor intoxicated in public.
MAY 8, 2012
THEFT OF SERVICES
Officers were dispatched to a report of theft of services in the Fred Meyer parking lot. The caller was a taxi driver who attempted to get payment from a rider but the man would not pay him. Instead, the man got out of the cab and got into a blue Hummer. Before driving away, he somehow turned around and struck the taxi before fleeing the parking lot.
As the officer approached the Fred Meyer intersection, he saw the man turning out of the business complex. Officers pulled him over.
The man was instructed to exit his vehicle but he insisted that he wasn’t the one driving. He was the only person in the car. He came out of the drivers’ side and kept repeating that he had not been driving. He seemed drunk and the officer recognized him as a man he came in contact with an hour earlier. He was reported as an intoxicated person growling and grunting at customers at the front door of Fred Meyer. At the time, the taxi had been called, per his request, as he was drunk and unable to drive his vehicle.
The taxi driver told police that the man asked to drive to a Bonney Lake residence and when they got there, the man asked to be taken back to Fred Meyer.
At the station, he refused to take a breathalyzer because he maintained he hadn’t been driving at all. He asked the officer why he would take the word of a foreigner over his, as he is the “true American” and had not been driving. He said he was an American soldier and called the officer a Democrat – and it was people like him that he hates to fight for. The man was charged with hit and run and DUI.
MAY 10, 2012
BURGLARY
Someone called Sumner Police to report a burglary in a shed on Rams field, located on the 3200 block of West Valley Highway.
The burglary occurred some time a few days before. A large piece of plywood had been removed from the east side of the wall, leaving a large hole in the shed. A flashlight was found nearby. An igloo cooler, propane tanks, a portable PA system with microphone, two pop up tents, a crab cooker and a picture of an airplane were stolen. Parts of the propane system for the stove had been torn up and removed, too.
The officer gave the man a case number for follow-up and the man was advised to store serial numbers of anything left on the site in the future, in case of theft.
