Bonney Lake Police Blotter: Stepbrother Feud, Stolen Bichon Maltese

Nov. 14, 2011

DUI

An officer was dispatched for a report of a possible DUI driver at Discount Tires. The caller, a Discount Tires employee, said he had just fixed the tires on a black Chevy Aveo and that the driver of that car appeared under the influence. He was having a hard time staying awake and staggering around. After he fixed the tire, the employee watched the man drive off toward Sonic.

The officer went to Sonic and found the vehicle parked half in and half out of a parking space. The car was running and the driver was passed out behind the wheel. Police woke him up and he admitted to just being at Discount Tires but was in the process of scratching a lottery ticket.

The officer asked how he damaged his tire, and the man said he thought he fell asleep while driving and hit a curb somewhere in Federal Way. While the man didn’t smell of intoxicants, he admitted to taking Percocet for back pain. The officer found a pill crusher in his pocket and a bottle of painkillers prescribed to him in his coat pocket.

The man failed a field sobriety test in the Sonic parking lot and was cited for DUI. His car was impounded.

Nov. 17, 2011

Stolen Dog

A woman came to the Bonney Lake Police Department to report her white Bichon Maltese dog as stolen.

She told police she had been in the Fred Meyer the week prior and left her dog in the car while she was shopping. Then, someone reported on the PA system that a white dog was loose in the parking lot. The woman spoke to the store manager, who said that one of the store’s employees found the dog and took it with him to the South Hill Fred Meyer, where he sometimes worked. The manager told the woman that her employee knew a place in that area that groomed dogs and found homes for them. The dog owner called the Fred Meyer employee, who said he took her dog to the Tacoma Pierce County Animal Shelter. She thought it was odd and contacted the shelter; she was told that no dogs matching her description had been dropped off and Bonney Lake was out of their jurisdiction. The woman called Metro Animal Services and was told they did not have a dog that matched her description, either. The woman suspected the store employee of stealing her dog.

Police contacted the Fred Meyer employee who said that a customer informed him they saw someone in the parking lot kick a little white dog out of their car. He said he walked outside and saw the dog running under vehicles, and that it had no collar or identifying marks. The dog’s coat was dirty and matted. The man put a call over the PA system and waited 30 minutes before taking the dog to a veterinarian hospital on South Hill to get it checked for a microchip. There was no microchip, so the man brought it to the Humane Society in Tacoma.

He told the officer that he went to the back entrance of the shelter and was greeted by a woman who said she’d take care of the dog. Since he was in a hurry, he left the dog with her without bringing it inside.

The vet hospital confirmed the man came in with the dog and that one of their employees offered to take it if no one claimed it. Police determined that the man thought the animal was a stray and left it with someone at the Humane Society. The dog owner told police she had a broken window in her car and believed that’s how the dog escaped in the first place.

Nov. 20, 2011

Domestic Violence

Officers responded to a domestic violence assault on the 7000 block of Locust Ave. E. The caller said that his stepbrother had assaulted him. The man was described as in his ‘30s and missing his right arm.

The reporting party told police his stepbrother knocked on the door and he didn’t answer, because the two had fought in the past. His stepbrother let himself in with a key and punched the man in his right cheek with his left fist. The man ran to his bedroom to grab a handgun to defend himself, but his stepbrother left the residence before he returned to the living room. The gun was not involved in any conflict.

The reporting party said he had just gotten out of the Marines after serving for five years. Officers noted that they found it unusual that a former Marine would need to defend himself with a handgun against one-armed person. The man replied, “I don’t mess around.”

The reporting party’s father and his wife arrived at the house while police were there and said the stepbrother had legal access to the house. The stepbrother is the wife’s son and the reporting party is the man’s son. The two had become stepbrothers when they were adults and their parents got married.

The man thought his son, who ran away after hitting the reporting party, was staying with his ex-wife. Police spoke to her on the phone and she said he wasn’t with her at that time but she’d have him give officers a call.

Around 11 p.m. that night, officers received a call from the man, who told them he had gone to his father’s residence and his stepbrother would not answer the door when he knocked on it. He said he could see him smirking from inside, the man let himself in with a key and the two began to argue. He grabbed his stepbrother by the shirt and hit him in the head. The man said that since he only has one arm he didn’t want to fight his stepbrother, so when he ran in the back room to grab a gun, the man left.    

Police forwarded charges of domestic violence against both men to the Bonney Lake Prosecutor for review.