Kent Police pull stolen car from Green River: no bodies

Published 4:12 pm Friday, March 13, 2009

Kent Police recovered a stolen rental car Tuesday in the Green River near Russell Road and South 212th Street.

Nobody was inside the car, a 2009 Chevrolet Impala, reported stolen Feb. 24 by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, said Paul Petersen, Kent Police spokesman, in a phone interview Wednesday.

Police received a call at about 12:15 p.m. Tuesday from a person who spotted what appeared to be the top of a car in the river, just north of South 212th Street.

A Kent Fire Department diver entered the river and found an unoccupied car with all of the windows rolled down. The diver obtained the vehicle’s license-plate number. Police checked the license-plate number and discovered the car had been reported stolen.

Pete’s Towing brought in a truck to pull the car out of the river.

Stolen cars are rarely dumped in the Green River in Kent.

“Maybe one a year,” Petersen said. “It’s a dangerous way to dump a stolen car.”

Petersen said there are high embankments in the area of the river where the car was found.

The vehicle might be connected with a shooting in Tacoma, so Kent Police turned over possession of the car to Tacoma Police, Petersen said.