News

Gig Harbor Police Blotter: Bottles smashed following misunderstanding

Editor’s note: The Blotter is written based on information provided by Gig Harbor Police and Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One.

An apparent misunderstanding between a convenience store clerk and a regular customer resulted in destruction of merchandise and a citation for malicious mischief.

The clerk asked police to come to the convenience store on Point Fosdick around 11:30 p.m. Jan. 2. The clerk reported that a customer had destroyed several bottles of alcohol after he misunderstood comments made by the clerk.

Apparently the regular customer had been in the store a few nights earlier, intoxicated, and had caused a scene. He returned the next night to apologize, whereupon the clerk attempted to placate the customer by saying he had a “chill personality” and remarking favorably on his physical appearance.

The customer returned again on Jan. 2 to confront the clerk, using homophobic slurs despite saying he had no problem with gay people. The confrontation escalated and the clerk refused to sell the customer alcohol. The customer responded by smashing several bottles on the ground.

Officers located the suspect and escorted him back to the store. The clerk refused to let the suspect pay for the damaged merchandise. They started arguing again, and officers escorted the suspect out of the store. Police cited him for malicious mischief.

Mustang runs from police again

An officer noticed a white Ford Mustang, which records indicated had fled from police on several occasions, outside a store on Olympic Drive on the evening of Dec. 30.

The officer saw several things wrong with the vehicle, including too-dark window tinting, a bong sitting in plain sight and a back seat full of likely shoplifted merchandise. However, the store reported no recent incidents and the officer couldn’t locate the Mustang’s driver, so he continued with his day.

The same officer noticed the Mustang two other times that night. The third time, he saw a woman get inside the car and start driving away.

The officer tried to pull the car over, but it got on Highway 16 headed toward Tacoma. The Mustang accelerated and began swerving in lanes, a tactic used by suspects to force police to discontinue a pursuit. The officer did so and the Mustang continued into Tacoma.

Car with no plates rams parked vehicles

An officer noticed a silver Toyota Camry backed into a parking spot at a department store on Borgen Boulevard on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. It had no front license plate, no rear plate, and an obviously forged temporary plate written in Sharpie. Even if the temporary plate was legitimate, its expiration date was written as Jan. 1, 2022.

As the officer got out of his patrol car, a suspect walked up to the Camry and hurriedly got inside. As the officer attempted to speak to him, the suspect rammed the Camry into two unoccupied vehicles parked nearby, then fled out of the parking lot. Nobody was injured. The store manager promised to check for surveillance video footage.

Purse-snatching outside grocery store

A 65-year-old Gig Harbor woman told police that a younger female grabbed her purse off her shoulder and ran at about 9:30 a.m. Jan 2.

The theft occurred as she was walking into a grocery store on Point Fosdick Drive. The victim reported no injuries and provided only a vague description of the suspect, a white female in her 30s. The victim didn’t know which way the suspect fled and store surveillance cameras didn’t capture the incident.