By Thurston Chronicle staff
The Olympia Police Department responded to a total of 901 calls for service this week.
The department remarked upon the following notable trends:
- Officers arrested the suspect in the aggravated assault reported this week. The suspect strangled the victim, punched her in the face, took her phone and wouldn’t let her leave. She eventually escaped and fled to a family member nearby. Officers used a drone and canine unit to search for the suspect and eventually found him hiding in the rear cargo area of the car that the victim had just been in. In addition to the assault, he was charged with unlawful imprisonment, interfering with reporting of domestic violence and obstructing.
- Two robberies were reported this week. One was delayed reporting and happened at the end of January. A male attempted to hit one victim, who ducked, and the other got hit. He then tried to grab a backpack off one of the victim’s but was unsuccessful. In the other robbery, the suspect demanded money from the cash register and threatened to shoot the employee with what appeared to be a gun. A Lacey Police Officer in the area located the suspect nearby and he was arrested. During the investigation, the gun turned out to be a realistic gun-shaped lighter, but you could not tell without close inspection. Some of the money was recovered.
- The three thefts reported this week were of bikes. In one case, the suspect was identified and seen on video stealing an e-bike from the victim’s front door. There was delayed reporting on the theft, and the suspect was already in jail for a separate incident when probable cause was established. Officers are still investigating trafficking of stolen goods after the suspect’s friend sold the stolen bike to someone else. The bike was ultimately recovered.
The Olympia Police Department posts weekly crime updates at https://tinyurl.com/2s49v9f9
The police department’s crime map, which includes serious felony crimes, vehicle prowls, thefts excluding shoplifting, and arrests beginning in Nov. 2020, can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/stk9a64n
For a complete list of case reports, visit olympiawa.gov/p2c
