Kent Police and Valley SWAT arrested a 34-year-old man Wednesday night recently featured on Washington’s Most Wanted television show for dealing heroin in King County and failing to show up in court.
Gabriel Acena also is a convicted killer for a 2001 case near the Space Needle. Kent Police, Valley SWAT and the Valley Narcotics Task Force arrested Acena at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in a parking lot in the 27300 block of Pacific Highway South.
“He was a passenger in a vehicle, which was stopped in a parking lot,” said Kent Police Cmdr. Eric Hemmen in an email. “He gave up once he saw the car was blocked in and all the police officers were swarming around his vehicle.”
Police booked Acena into the King County jail at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. He was wanted on a warrant from the King County Sheriff’s Office for heroin dealing after he failed to appear in court, Hemmen said.
The Q13 Fox show in October featured a profile of Acena, one of three men who beat and shot to death Patrick Franz, 20, a Fort Lewis soldier, near the Space Needle on New Year’s Eve in 2001. Acena pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a six-year prison sentence. He was released in 2006.
Acena, who has been in and out of jail because of drug arrests, was known to stay in the Kent and Renton area, often at motels, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
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