Police Beat

Rainier Valley/Mon Nov 2/12:45 am:

Officer John Marion reports: “While on uniformed patrol in the city
of Seattle, officers observed a white Jeep Cherokee going southbound on
Rainier Avenue South. The vehicle was traveling at a high rate of
speed. At Rainier and Othello Street, the driver locked the wheels and
the vehicle slid to a stop. Officers heard the tires screeching
loudly. When the vehicle startedagain southbound on Rainier, it
accelerated rapidly and continued at a high rate of speed.

“The vehicle was driven erratically and was swerving and jerking
back and forth. There were other vehicles on the roadway that the
driver of the Jeep was endangering while driving in this manner.
Officers activated emergency lights and attempted to stop the vehicle
at Rainier and South Rose Street. The vehicle did not stop for lights
and sirens but continued to drive at a low rate of speed.

“The vehicle turned onto Rose Street and stopped at 49th [and] Rose.
As officers were exiting the patrol vehicle to contact the driver, the
vehicle [suddenly] drove away southbound on 49th. The occupants of the
vehicle appeared to be looking for a place to exit the vehicle and flee
on foot. Officers also believed that the occupants might have been
attempting to lure officers away from the arterial streets for
purposes of attacking officers. Officers followed the vehicle as it
pulled into a driveway and stopped. Officers exited the patrol vehicle
and removed both occupants from the vehicle. The driver/suspect and the
passenger were placed in handcuffs and detained at the location of the
stop…”

Officer Marion concludes: “Officers frisked the vehicle for weapons
but found none.”

The suspects turned out to be nothing more than misbehaving young
people. But in the middle of the report, we find that the officers
mistook them not for regular criminals but for enemy combatants who
were executing a military-­style ambush. Under normal
circumstances, the officers would not have imagined such a ridiculous
thing. But these were not normal circumstances. Two nights before,
Officer Timothy Brenton was shot while sitting in a marked patrol car
with a student officer. He died on the spot. “This is an
assassination,” said Assistant Chief Jim Pugel, who later connected the
suspected assassin to an attempt to lure officers into a firebombing at
a police parking lot on October 22. For a moment, the SPD saw our city
as a battle zone. Those foolish young people are damn lucky to be
alive.