Late Friday evening, Seattle police set out to arrest a man police characterize as a "known, violent south-end gang member" for the illegal possession of an AK-47 assault rifle, which was allegedly found by King County deputies during a warranted search of his home.

According to a police report, multiple officers were dispatched to south Seattle at 10:20 p.m. on October 7, to locate the suspect's 2000 green Crown Victoria (basically an old, fat, cop car). Twenty minutes later, an undercover police car spotted the suspect enter the vehicle at the corner of South Lucile Street and 46th Avenue South, and start driving west. As the first car followed the suspect, another undercover car positioned itself four blocks west, facing the approaching suspect. The report explains, "Based on [the suspect's] violent criminal and gang history, we were attempting this tactic as an attempt to avoid [the suspect] fleeing the area."

As the suspect approached, the waiting police car "pulled [their] vehicle in front of his vehicle at an angle with our emergency lights activated." The intent was to make it "very clear that we were a police vehicle attempting to stop [his] vehicle."

When the suspect approached in his car, he appeared to slow down, prompting two detectives to exit the vehicle. "I then saw that [the suspect] was not going to stop and he quickly accelerated," Officer Chan explains in his report.

"[He] was just able to squeeze past the right front corner of our police car." The report goes on: "Det. Huber and Det. Mooney saw [the suspect] coming at them and they both jumped back into our police car to avoid being struck." The old Crown Vic then allegedly slammed the undercover car's right rear passenger door shut moments after one of the detectives pulled his feet in, and took off north on 42nd Avenue S. Detectives pursued the suspect, but quickly lost sight of him.

The suspect is now being investigated for assault of an officer. I have a call in to SPD seeking comment.