After a vehicle and foot pursuit, Kent Police used a Taser to take a 32-year-old Bellevue man into custody for investigation of burglary, eluding an officer and possession of a stolen vehicle.
Officers were notified by dispatch at about 11 a.m. Sunday, July 21 that a commercial burglary had occurred at an East Hill construction site in the 28500 block of 144th Avenue SE, according to a July 23 Kent Police news release.
The witness said that the suspect vehicle, a gray 2007 Toyota Prius, was last seen travelling northbound on 144th Avenue SE. An officer was nearby and took an educated guess on which road the suspect would take to escape the area. He positioned himself driving eastbound on that road and just a short time later saw the suspect vehicle travelling westbound past him.
The officer turned to follow, activating his emergency equipment, but the suspect refused to yield. The officer began to pursue, but at the same time was scanning for a safe place to conduct a Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT). A second officer quickly joined him and together used a successful PIT stopping the vehicle, and then pinned the vehicle to keep it from leaving.
The man took off on foot. An officer was hot on his tail running while giving the man several loud commands to stop because he was under arrest. As he tried to run away, he yelled back that he was on fentanyl and “hated the drug,” according to police.
After giving multiple warnings that he would be tased if he didn’t stop fleeing, he was tased, according to police. Officers booked the man into the King County jail. The car he fled in turned out to be an unreported stolen vehicle out of Issaquah, according to police.
Officers reportedly could see multiple tools through the stolen car’s windows, along with a computer monitor. Those items reportedly matched the description what was stolen in the burglary. A video was later recovered reportedly showing the man taking the items with a female companion who police have not yet identified. The stolen car was sealed and towed to a local lot to await a judge’s approval for a search warrant.
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