As noted in our West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting report, Southwest Precinct leadership mentioned noteworthy arrests. But they did not foreshadow an arrest local police would make just a few hours later – the one that has landed 33-year-old Ryan Cox back in jail.
Cox is known mostly for his arrests in 2009 and 2010 following graffiti vandalism all over West Seattle, usually a homophobic slur written in black marker. Three times, he was arrested, found not mentally competent to stand trial, and sent to Western State Hospital for an evaluation. Inbetween the second and third graffiti-vandalism arrests, he was arrested for tire-slashing, and pleaded guilty.
In the year since his last vandalism arrest, we have kept a periodic eye on the King County Jail Register and court records, but hadn’t noticed him turn up. Then a few hours ago, we got a tip that police had just arrested him at West Seattle Thriftway. We checked online records and found Cox had spent almost two weeks in jail last month, arrested for and pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of stalking. The details of that case are not available online, so until we can check with the Seattle City Attorney’s Office later this morning, we can’t find out what it’s about, but the Seattle Municipal Court website says a “failure to appear” arrest warrant was issued for Cox a week ago. That’s one of two reasons listed for him being booked into the jail at 11:30 Tuesday night; the second is “violation of a no-contact order.” Total bail: $8,450.
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