West Seattle Crime Watch followup: Fauntleroy search, explained

From the “sometimes followups take a few days” file:

(WSB photo from last Saturday)
Back on Saturday, police had a visible presence near the Fauntleroy ferry dock and Lincoln Park for a few hours. All they would say at the time was that they were “looking for a felony warrant suspect.” Finally we have tracked down the case number and report with details: A fare-enforcement officer at a bus stop by the ferry dock called police around 4 pm Saturday to say he had someone who he thought had a warrant out for his arrest (didn’t say why the enforcer thought that) but couldn’t hold the suspect.

Police arrived and found the man did indeed have a warrant out for a drug charge. They arrested him and handcuffed him; he had an empty syringe in his possession and told them he had used heroin that day. As they were putting him in a patrol car, he asked them to adjust his handcuffs, which were somewhat obstructed, the report says, by rubber bracelets and a watch. While officers were using a handcuff key to adjust the cuffs, the suspect bolted with such force “he broke the handcuff key in half.” They ran after him into the neighborhoods to the east, but lost him as he ran through yards. Containment was set up – the cars you might have seen blocking streets – and a K-9 officer was called; the dog sniffed the backpack left behind at the bus stop and followed a trail into Lincoln Park, but the suspect wasn’t found. Whenever he is found, along with the drug warrant, he is now wanted for escape.

12 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch followup: Fauntleroy search, explained"

  • Eric October 15, 2014 (3:00 pm)

    Wow, doing heroin and still breaking away and out running the police.

  • Diane October 15, 2014 (3:03 pm)

    omg; well that’s embarrassing

  • Jim P. October 15, 2014 (4:01 pm)

    Looks like someone needs to review their field procedures.

    That should *never* have happened. This is the sort of thing you normally see on badly written cop shows as there are very simple methods to keep someone secured and under control while you do this.

  • alki resident October 15, 2014 (4:50 pm)

    See Tom sit
    See Tom cuffed
    See Tom Run

  • Robert October 15, 2014 (6:10 pm)

    what do you expect when every move they make is under a microscope. if he dropped the guy in his tracks the media would have made a circus out of it .kinder-gentler-sweeter just dosn’t get it . sometimes you have to put some knots where they do the most good.

  • Dereck October 15, 2014 (8:33 pm)

    Sounds like they should of left the cuffs on but if needed cut the bands offhis wrist. Never trust a suspect like this.

  • JanS October 15, 2014 (9:51 pm)

    Robert…so, you’re saying “if he dropped the guy in his tracks”…you mean shoot him? Really?

  • mark47n October 16, 2014 (5:27 am)

    No one is looking for kinder or sweeter, just that the police follow the law. Also curious by what you intended by “drop him”. Also, the “microscope” that you are referring to is because the SPD has a track record of not following the law and there not being consequences for it.

  • Brian October 16, 2014 (8:07 am)

    This is literally a plot line from the Police Quest computer games that came out in the 80s and 90s. I am baffled.

  • D October 16, 2014 (11:23 am)

    The amount of police effort to fail to catch this guy was ridiculous, I was walking through Lincoln park at the time and what I saw was wasted tax dollars, and a huge over reaction. This guy has a drug problem but I don’t see any evidence he’s dangerous to other people, the only danger was having all those police cars driving at breakneck speeds through residential streets. Seattle police department needs to reevaluate its priorities, slow down, and keep their guns in their holsters. A drug suspect makes a run for it, who cares let him run. We should try to help this guy with drug rehab if we can, the resources would be much better spent there. The Seattle police department is harboring a culture of stupidity and bad decision making and I think it needs a major overhaul.

    • WSB October 16, 2014 (11:32 am)

      D – just one datapoint, while the warrant was for a drug charge, I don’t have his full name so no ability to research whether he had a significant crime history, or not, which might (or might not) have explained the search/stakeout, which certainly did go on for hours (the only reason we followed up on it) – TR

  • D October 16, 2014 (1:12 pm)

    Sure one data point, but they must have known he wasn’t armed, because they would have checked him when they cuffed him. So unless he was a known violent offender I can’t see a justification for that kind of reaction to an unarmed suspect and if he was only a drug suspect, as the article indicated, I’d be interested to hear more on why the Seattle PD reacted the way they did.

Sorry, comment time is over.