Rainier Valley/West Seattle/Fri Oct 2/3:39 am: Officer Renner is the author of the following report: "Officers of the South Precinct responded to a reported suicidal male. The call was coming secondhand from Snohomish Crisis Outreach. The unknown man was reporting that he was armed with a knife. He stated that he wanted the police to kill him. The subject gave his location as being near the Safeway at Rainier Avenue and Othello Street. Officers did an extensive area check, but were unable to locate the subject.

"The subject called again and reported that he was in West Seattle, near the Safeway on 41st Avenue Southwest. Officer Koshak and I were in the area of the Jefferson Square Safeway and began a search. The subject called again and said he was in a green house and could see us. When the subject was asked to step outside, he hung up the phone.

"At 0329, the subject called again and stated he was now walking toward the West Seattle Safeway, armed with a baseball bat and a knife. We conducted an area check, but were unable to come up with anything.

"I called the Crisis Outreach and spoke to MHP. She told me she no longer believed anything the subject has reported. She told me she had instructed the call takers at her clinic to hang up if the subject called again."

The suicidal male was now in a difficult corner. For the police to respond to him, for the crisis-center workers to renew their faith in his words, he had to be dead. The officers and call takers now only trusted his corpse. As a living, breathing, heart-beating man, he was to them unbelievable.

Downtown/Sun Sept 27/11:09 pm: Officer Renick reports: "I was working patrol as 3G31. At around 2030, I drove by 23rd Avenue and Union Street when I saw suspect and victim in a parking lot. It appeared that suspect was hitting the victim with a roughly three-foot-long, one-inch-round black metal pipe. I saw the victim trying to block the blows with his hands.

"I drove into the parking lot and saw the suspect toss the pipe behind First Cup Coffee stand and walk away, northbound. He stopped when I ordered him to do so. I then stepped out of the car and heard the victim say something like 'I didn't take anything from you. Why did you do this to me? Why was I whomped?' At this point, I noticed the victim was dripping blood all over the ground and the front of my police car.

"I took suspect into custody. However, when I asked the victim why the suspect hit him several times with the metal pipe, he refused to offer an explanation and declined to give a written statement."

The word that is the heart of this report: whomped.