By Megan Sheppard
On the WSBeat, for West Seattle Blog

This edition of the WSBeat contains summaries written from reports on cases handled in the past several weeks by Southwest Precinct officers – generally cases that (usually) have not already appeared here in breaking-news coverage or West Seattle Crime Watch reports, but that might at least answer the question “what WERE all those police doing on my block?”

*Around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, a citizen called 911 to report a suspicious vehicle lingering near Arbor Heights Elementary. Two people had exited the vehicle and disappeared behind some portable classrooms. Officers discovered that one man was wanted on a $10,000 misdemeanor warrant and booked him into King County Jail.

*On the afternoon of the 28th, a driver ran into three parked vehicles near 35th and Webster. He and his girlfriend were uncooperative and provided false names — perhaps because the driver was wanted on a no-bail felony escape warrant (extraditable from all fifty states). He was booked into King County Jail.

Four more summaries ahead:

*On the morning of the 25th, an officer went to check on some homeless people staying in the 9600 block of 35th SW. A dog charged out of a van and immediately began snarling and barking. The owner yelled and the dog retreated, but not before it bit the officer in the upper thigh. The dog is on a ten-day quarantine. The officer was treated and released from Harborview.

*On the afternoon of the 30th, a citizen saw four men in their twenties exit a vehicle (a silver Infiniti I30 four-door) at the top of stairs in the 5900 block of 21st SW. They then carried something down the pathwway. Officers responded and found a broken, black metal safe on the ground. Inside the safe were six capped unused needles and a box and documents for a digital scale.

*Sticky fingers — seemingly coated in raspberry jam — were responsible for the theft of a battery box stolen from a trailer in the 9000 block of 30th SW on July 24th. The small handprints were not useful for identification purposes.

*On Monday afternoon, a customer came into a local credit union branch and claimed that “The Cartel” was after him and falsifying his bank accounts. Obviously paranoid and struggling to fill out paperwork, the man said he wouldn’t leave until he spoke with officers. When they arrived, he spoke of other people who were after him or poisoning him (“My skin feels strange.”) He agreed to go to Harborview for a checkup.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Remember, the CRISIS CLINIC hotline is a resource for those in crisis, including thoughts or acts of self-harm, or trying to find help for someone in crisis: 206.461.3222 … Previous WSBeat roundups are archived here. We also publish crime reports when we get tips or otherwise hear about noteworthy incidents – they don’t all turn up on the scanner, so please don’t be shy about letting us know when you see/hear something happening = calling or texting 206-293-6302 is the best way.