The following information was compiled from Renton Police Department case reports.
Renton Police officers searching a house on 84th Avenue South for burglars July 27 found a 6-foot-2, 200-pound Renton man hiding in a refrigerator.
The man tried to flee but the officer immediately closed the refrigerator door, pinning him inside. The officer “escorted him to the kitchen floor” and handcuffed him.
The other suspect, also a Renton man and weighing 190 pounds (but nearly a foot shorter), almost managed to escape detection. While the officer went left into the kitchen, a second one went right into the laundry room, finding no one. But a second officer checking again found the suspect hiding behind the clothes washer and hot-water heater. He was handcuffed.
Police were called to the house at about 8:30 a.m. after a nearby resident saw two men kick over a board at his neighbor’s house. They then ran to another house the neighbor said has been vacant for more than a year.
The officers tracked down the vacant-home’s owner in Illinois after finding certified mail in the mailbox but couldn’t reach her. The house is in foreclosure; a property management company was to secure the property.
The two men were released. The bank that owns the vacant house didn’t want to pursue the matter, but prosecutors were reviewing charges the two men trespassed at the first house.
NOT WORTH IT: The 53-year-old Seattle man admitted all of “this” – stolen milk and diapers from Safeway and a string of hit and runs – wasn’t worth it.
The man fled from the Safeway on South Second Street at about 4:30 p.m. July 25 after stealing the milk and diapers and hitting two other cars in the parking lot as he fled, an officer in pursuit.
He came to a stop when he hit a Dodge Durango at Southwest Langston Road and Earlington Avenue Southwest. Medics checked the children inside the Durango; they were OK.
An officer found the suspect hiding in bushes near a house.
He was booked into the SCORE regional jail for investigation of a number of charges. He insisted he was OK medically and was accepted at the jail.
However, jailers changed their minds after they learned the suspect had been diagnosed with cancer. The officer drove him to Valley Medical Center, but with no officers available to watch him there because of traffic calls, dropped him off at the doors to the ER and notified him citations were being sent to prosecutors.
TEENS ROB PIZZA MAN: Kids in their mid-teens robbed a pizza-delivery man of four pizzas at about 11:30 p.m. on July 28 near downtown Renton.
It was the second such robbery in recent weeks in which the pizza was ordered from the same phone number; in this incident the pizza was delivered to a different address.
The delivery man determined he was given a bogus address on Williams Avenue North, but he was flagged down by the teens who indicated they had ordered the pizza.
He handed over the pizza and waited while a teen made a show of looking for money. The teen then fled with the pizza. The rest fled; one slipped the grip of the victim.
The pizza cost $37.
EIGHT VEHICLES BROKEN INTO: Eight vehicles were broken in to just after 1 a.m. on July 28 in the 1800 block of Grant Avenue South.
The thefts were discovered after one of the victims was awakened by the car alarm on his Mercedes Benz. Someone took his sunglasses, backpack and keys.
The responding officer found seven more vehicles with smashed windows and left a case number for each of the victims. The officer didn’t wake them because of the lateness of the hour.
SHE FILLS STROLLER WITH MERCHANDISE: A 30-year-old Seattle woman carried her 7-month baby boy through Fry’s Electronics on Garden Avenue North on July 28 so she could hide electronic gear inside his stroller.
She picked out a Phonesuit Elite 6 cell phone, an LG HBS800 bluetooth headset and a Spring LG Tribute cell phone, all valued at nearly $320.
Store security stopped her when she walked out without paying for the merchandise. She told the officer, “I made a mistake.” A citation for third-degree theft was sent to prosecutors; she was trespassed from Fry’s for a year.
