Tag: counterfeit
Text courtesy of the Blaine Police Department, with minor edits for style.
Wednesday, March 20
1:45 p.m. A police officer driving on Peace Portal had his patrol car pelted by rocks thrown up by a passing vehicle. This was strange since both cars were driving on a clear paved street and even the roadway shoulders were gravel free. The mystery was resolved a couple of minutes later when the passing car was found disabled nearby. It turned out that the patrol car had been struck by the passing car’s loosened lug nuts flying off its wheel. The driver realized that something was seriously amiss just in time to stop before the wheel itself flew off into traffic. Officers searched for and recovered three of the projectiles, and delivered them to the mechanic who was making repairs.
8:40 p.m. A Blaine business on D Street called to report receiving counterfeit U.S. currency after a customer attempted to pay for purchased goods. An officer arrived and contacted the customer, a business person from British Columbia who advised that she had received the fake U.S. $50 bill from one of her customers a week earlier. The officer confiscated the paper and forwarded it to the U.S. Secret Service.
Thursday, March 21
12:45 a.m. A patrol officer found a transient camped out on the porch of a closed store at about 1 a.m. on a freezing night. The gentleman was not subject to any criminal restraints. Police gave him a courtesy ride to the Lighthouse Mission to save him from spending the rest of the night in the frigid dark.
5:08 p.m. A patrol officer observed a vehicle fail to yield for a Blaine School District bus which had stopped on Peace Portal Drive with its warning lights flashing and was discharging students. The officer stopped the violator and listened to his explanation that he was from out of state and did not know that he needed to stop for standing school buses displaying flashing lights and stop signs. The motorist was educated with a traffic citation.
Friday, March 22
9:45 a.m. A city employee reported that a door to a house on a Harrison Avenue was ajar, although there was no one around the place. Police officers responded and checked the property. There was no fresh damage or indications of any crime except neglect. The door was closed again, the officers returned to patrol, and the neighborhood tabby cat returned to the sunny patch of porch which it had sulkily abandoned when the cops arrived.
9:52 a.m Blaine officers investigating a case involving a stolen vehicle left at a hit and run scene stopped a vehicle on the freeway on-ramp at the south end of Blaine. The driver of the stopped car fled on foot into a nearby industrial area. Police and U.S. Border Patrol agents established a perimeter and U.S. Border Patrol agents tracked the suspect to his hiding place in a commercial dumpster behind a business. The 24-year-old Birch Bay resident was also wanted by the sheriff’s office for investigation on a burglary, and was booked into jail.
11:26 a.m. A resident on Mitchell Street called police to report that his vehicle was stolen from his home overnight. The remains of his 1992 Cadillac were found abandoned and destroyed by a collision with a tree near the freeway off ramp to the truck route. Police are investigating.
1:07 p.m. A resident on Peace Portal Drive reported that her bicycle had been stolen overnight. The tan REI Novara-brand Safari-model mountain bike is valued at several hundred dollars. Police are investigating.
2:02 p.m. Police were asked to intercede in a possible truancy case involving two high school students on Cedar Street. An officer got information that the kids might be at home, and found them there claiming they were sick. When Mom found out the kids were home she asked for assistance getting the teens delivered back to school. The officer was happy to oblige and the school was happy to have their customers back on campus.
8:17 p.m. An officer was dispatched to a business on 12th Street to take custody of two counterfeit U.S. $20 bills. The notes were discovered when employees were balancing their tills. Police took the bills and forwarded them to the U.S. Secret Service.
Saturday, March 23
11:10 a.m. A homeowner on a Rene Court was contacted by an older motorist who stopped to ask for directions. The gentleman appeared disoriented and possibly having breathing difficulty. The resident went inside for a minute to call for assistance but the motorist drove away. Officers searched the area for a blue newer Cadillac with a military veteran license plate and placed a welfare check request with neighboring agencies, but the driver and vehicle were not located.
2 p.m. A patrol officer attempted to stop a vehicle speeding 64 mph in the 35 mph zone on Peace Portal. The driver apparently tried to evade the officer by turning onto side streets, but was overtaken and stopped on Clyde Street. The motorist was arrested for reckless driving and negligent eluding, and released after signing a promise to appear for a mandatory court hearing.
Sunday, March 24
5:10 a.m. U.S. Customs and Border Protection called and requested Blaine Police interview a disoriented driver on Second Street. An officer arrived at the Peace Arch Port of Entry and contacted a Bothell, Wash., resident who had gotten lost after leaving a grocery store near his home hours earlier. The man agreed to get some sleep at a nearby motel and wait until daylight to drive again, so as not to get lost. The officer escorted him to the motel to make sure he got there.
6:10 p.m. A sharp eyed cashier at a convenience store service station on D Street found a counterfeit U.S. $20 bill among the cash offered by a regular customer for payment. Police were called to the scene and interviewed the customer. She explained that the fake U.S. note had been received as payment at their own business in Vancouver, B.C., at some point in the preceding days. The bogus bill was impounded by officers and will be forwarded to the U.S. Secret Service along with information about its travels.
6:47 p.m. Police received a report of a red Mustang driving recklessly in a mall parking lot on H Street. An officer arrived within a minute and upon arrival the car had already left the area. There was smoke still visible from the burning tires when officers arrived.
7:10 p.m. Customers busily washing their clothes in a coin laundry business on Third Street found a credit card laying in one of the machines, and brought it to a police officer who was busily washing his patrol car in the nearby station parking lot. The customer was thanked, the card was impounded, and the owner or her bank will be advised of the recovery.
Monday, March 25
2:10 p.m. Officers responded to a report of two injured bald eagles in a Semiahmoo Development. The state wildlife agency was advised and a private agency responded to care for the birds.
7:15 p.m. A passerby in a commercial business parking lot on H Street noticed a car without a handicapped parking permit stopped in a marked handicapped stall. She mentioned to the driver that a handicapped permit was needed to use the parking place, but the man’s profane abusive reply made it very clear that education was not going to be effective at resolving the problem. The witness picked up the phone to call the police, and as she did so the driver and vehicle left the parking lot. Officers have a valid vehicle license plate on the gray Honda Civic and are looking to contact and identify the suspect.
7:46 p.m. A man called from Eighth Street asking for a welfare check on his child, who is the subject of a custody dispute and currently under the court ordered care of the child’s mother. The gentleman had no direct information the child was in harm’s way, and the court order prevented him from having any contact whatsoever with child or mother. An officer advised him that the police were not going to violate the court order on his behalf, and he should use his upcoming court date to air his concerns.
Posted by Caleb Hutton
Text courtesy of the Blaine Police Department, with minor edits for style.
Wednesday, Feb. 20
1:45 p.m. A driver was maneuvering his big commercial vehicle through a business parking lot when a tiny part of his truck briefly met with the very edge of the large metal roof awning over a drive up ATM kiosk on Martin Street. The contact was just enough send the roof crashing 10 feet down to the pavement, narrowly but sufficiently missing the vehicles parked around it. Officers responded to investigate the collision, and contacted the lucky car owners to move their autos out of harms way. The broken roof was removed and the ATM’s owner was advised that their cash machine was getting rained on.
Thursday, Feb. 21
12:30 a.m. A family left home on Garfield Street in a rush when their young son fell ill and needed to go to the hospital. They’d not been then long when they remembered that they had loaded a batch of freshly made bread dough into their hot kitchen oven before they left. They called for police assistance and an officer was dispatched to the residence. He contacted a neighbor for assistance, and found that the kitchen was still standing and the baked bread was not ablaze.
1:25 p.m. A police officer was dispatched to a service station on D Street when attendants there came across a counterfeit U.S. $50 bill. The officer impounded the fake note for the U.S. Secret Service, and contacted the person who had tried to pay for fuel with the bogus bill. The man explained that he had received the fake U.S. bill from a bank in South Surrey, B.C. The same service station intercepted another fake $50 bill later the following day.
Friday, Feb. 22
2:57 p.m. Curiosity and temptation got the better of a business employee who was cleaning a storage room and happened upon an old, unused panic alarm remote control. The crew member punched the button to see what would happen, and the device’s long life batteries did the rest. The company called their alarm company to cancel the resulting response by emergency services personnel, and the first arriving officer made sure that everything was all right inside in the Boblett Street business.
4:22 p.m. A commercial driver was backing his truck off of Boblett Street into a business driveway when the passenger side of his trailer struck a Blaine City light pole. The metal pole and light crashed to the pavement blocking the driveway of another business, but missed the people and vehicles in the area. Police arrived to investigate and document the collision. A crew from the city’s electrical department removed the broken pole, placed safety cones around the scene and secured the exposed wiring at the pedestal.
8:56 p.m. A service station employee became suspicious of activity occurring in the cab of a box truck parked on their lot. It was dark and the truck’s windows were all fogged up, but it appeared that the man and woman inside were engaged in an activity both friendly and energetic. The officer who was called to investigate found that either the calisthenics had concluded or had not been quite what they seemed. In either case the couple decided to leave the parking lot and wait elsewhere for their border crossing paperwork.
11:42 p.m. Just before midnight, police responded to a 911 call from a man stating that he had been robbed near the intersection of Third and G streets by a big guy who was possibly armed. It turned out that the big guy the caller referred was the police officer who had written the caller a traffic ticket an hour earlier. The caller then complained that he was employed by the Miss America Pageant and was paid in cash for his labors only to have the ticket writer steal his money. The responding officers tried to help the caller through his concerns but his mental state made that difficult. In the end he was warned that false reporting was a criminal offense.
Saturday, Feb. 23
1:54 p.m. A person called to report that loud music was being played near their home on Pintail Loop around 2:30 a.m. The person was advised to call when the music is actually being played so that police could respond and identify the offending location. The complainant advised that usually starts after his 7 p.m. bedtime and continues through the night. Patrol officers were advised of the complaint for their patrols.
2:35 p.m. Police received multiple calls for service from a elderly resident on Pintail Loop, but none of the events reported could be substantiated by investigation. An officer contacted relatives of the person to advise that their family member may be experiencing some age-related difficulties.
3:47 p.m. A U.S. Customs canine team working at the Peace Arch Port of Entry alerted to a car with California plates, which was re-entering the United States from Canada. Customs officers inspected the vehicle and an adult inside admitted to ownership of several grams of marijuana and a personal use amount of cocaine that was recovered from the man’s luggage. Blaine police were called to investigate, and arrested the 33-year-old Pasadena, Calif., resident for possession of cocaine. He was processed and released pending a mandatory court appearance.
8:03 p.m. Blaine officers responded with U.S. Border Patrol agents to a night time report that a man had walked south out of Peace Arch Park and headed down 2nd Street toward D Street through the residential neighborhood. When he spotted the approaching Border Patrol vehicles the man fled onto property adjacent to the street and tried to evade the responders. He gave up when he realized there were only two sides to the hedgerow he was using for cover, but four patrol cars surrounding him. The man admitted that he had entered the US without inspection, and the agents took him into custody.
9:17 p.m. A couple called police from Blaine Street to report that late the previous evening they had been awakened by the sound of someone jiggling the handle or lock on one of their home’s exterior doors. An officer responded and checked the front and back doors and lock sets, and spoke with the landlord. The information was shared with all officers for their patrols.
10:35 p.m. An officer contacted a resident who stated that two boys had been at his apartment complex possibly knocking on doors and running away. The officer had been in the area and spotted the duo as they ran across D Street, ducking through apartment complexes, and he found the boys nearby. They said they were out playing, but denied any knock and run activities. The pair was advised to head home for the night and they complied.
Monday, Feb. 25
8:53 a.m. An officer patrolling near the school campus stopped a motorist for speeding in the school zone. During the contact the officer found that the driver’s privilege to operate a vehicle in Washington had been suspended for several years, after he failed to take care of a speeding citation he received in Skagit County. The man was arrested for the criminal license violation and his vehicle was impounded. After processing he was released with a mandatory court date for driving with a suspended license, and a notice of infraction for speeding in the school zone.
Tuesday, Feb. 26
8:43 a.m. A man opening for the day at his business near Blaine Marina discovered that overnight thieves had broken in to two large storage sheds and prowled his property, stealing a quantity of metal parts and scrap. Police are investigating and descriptions of the suspects and their vehicle have been provided to all patrol officers. The extent of the loss is still being determined.
10:59 a.m. A business at Blaine Harbor report that a lock had been cut off of one of their cold storage freezer containers to their business overnight. The case is under investigation.
12:06 p.m. Following a report from a resident who suffered graffiti vandalism to his garage on D Street, an officer found several other instances of the same gang style tagging which occurred Monday night in to Tuesday morning, in an area along D and E streets. All of the property owners were contacted and advised of the damage so that they could immediately clean it off and prevent the vandalism from spreading. Meanwhile officers are searching for a fluorescent orange-fingered bad artist with poor spelling and worse social skills.
Posted by Caleb Hutton
Text courtesy of the Blaine Police Department, with minor edits for style.
[Editor's note: Crimes came in pairs this week in Blaine: A couple of DUIs at the border, a couple of counterfeit bills, a couple of attempted illegal border crossings, etc., etc.]
Tuesday, Nov. 20
10:31 a.m. A woman and her adult daughter were threatened by an adult relative who chased them through the family home on Dunlin Court during a domestic dispute. The women took refuge in a bedroom and closet, and called police for help. Officers responded, made the scene safe and investigated. The 46-year-old man involved was arrested.
4:23 p.m. A high-voltage electrical line problem tripped Blaine City Light’s protective circuits, and the lights went out on Georgia Street and most of town. While a utility crew isolated and repaired the problems, police provided traffic control at intersections where the signals had failed and checked on darkened businesses. One resident was at risk because she had no backup supply for her home oxygen system which required house current. Blaine’s Auxiliary Communications Service team responded with a portable generator to help the lady during the outage. Power to most of the city was restored within the hour.
5:10 p.m. Police were leaving a call at a multifamily housing complex on B Street when a smoke alarm sounded from an upstairs unit. An officer contacted the apartment’s lone resident and found that the elderly lady had decided to take a nap when her building’s power went off. Unfortunately when as nodded off she forgot about the meal she’d been cooking on the stove when the power failed. She was fast asleep when the lights, and the stove, came back on, so dinner’s charcoal remains and the police at her door were garnish to her rude awakening in a smoke filled apartment. The officer helped her turn off her appliances and ventilate the unit.
5:45 p.m. A couple contacted an officer at the police station to report that their family’s cat was missing from its home near Boblett and Fourth Street. They described Ben as a large, overweight friendly 10-year-old orange-and-white striped creature. He was normally very good about not venturing far from the family’s doorstep. All officers were advised of the watch-for for their patrols, and for the next several days they kept an eye out, without success. Finally, five days after his disappeared, Ben showed back up at home, looking a little lean and smelling of must and fuel. Ben’s owner suspects the car got locked into someone’s garage over the Thanksgiving weekend.
8 p.m. A business on H Street counted the day’s receipts, found a counterfeit $10 bill, and called police. The employees had no idea who passed the fake note. An officer confiscated the item and forwarded it to the Secret Service.
Wednesday, Nov. 21
4:59 p.m. A business called police to report a fight in progress aboard a bus in their mall parking lot. Police and U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived and determined that no assault had occurred. The ruckus turned out to be a bunch of young passengers yelling at each other aboard a party bus.
9:30 p.m. A business reported they were counting the cash at the end of the day and found a counterfeit $20 bill in their receipts. The employees did not know who passed the counterfeit bill, and an officer confiscated it for the Secret Service.
Thursday, Nov. 22
11:05 a.m. Police were dispatched to a report of two boys fighting on Eighth Street. An officer arrived to find 12- and 9-year-old brothers walking down the street. They admitted to horsing around, but were not actually fighting.
11:40 p.m. An officer backed U.S. Border Patrol agents an unknown person attempted to drive across the border at Harvey Road, then fled northbound after the vehicle got stuck. Royal Canadian Mounted Police initiated a search for the suspect, and Border Patrol agents impounded the vehicle.
Friday, Nov. 23
12:05 a.m. U.S. Customs officers reported they were questioning a person who drove up to a primary booth to gain entry into the United States. While a Customs officer was questioning the driver he noticed signs of the driver being under the influence of alcohol. The driver was brought into secondary inspection, where a Blaine Police Officer met with the motorist, who failed field sobriety tests. The 31-year-old Federal Way resident was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and booked into jail.
8:17 p.m. Police officers assisted U.S. Border Patrol field agents with a report that three border jumpers had entered the United States near Sixth and A Street in Blaine. The trio split up when they crossed, but all were quickly and peacefully captured within a block of their point of entry.
Saturday, Nov. 24
9:40 p.m. An officer stopped a vehicle on Adelia Street for a traffic violation and spotted a large open bottle of liquor in the back seat of the vehicle in plain view. The three people in the vehicle were all teenagers, and the driver was arrested for being a minor in possession of alcohol, cited and released. The officer also discovered a large amount of marijuana in a backpack that belonged to a back seat passenger. That youth was arrested and booked him for possession of marijuana with the intent to deliver.
Sunday, Nov. 25
1:05 a.m. A resident reported that her husband had been beaten up by his nephew in law during a domestic dispute. An officer arrived to find that the suspect had already fled the area. The nephew was later located by police and arrested for simple assault involving domestic violence.
Monday, Nov. 26
3:39 a.m. U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped a vehicle regarding suspicious activity near the border. While the agent was interviewing the driver he noticed the man might be under the influence of alcohol, and he requested Blaine police attend. An officer arrived to investigate and found the agent’s concern was justified. The motorist was arrested for driving under the influence and booked in to jail after processing.
3:09 p.m. Officer received a request to contact a person on G Street who wanted to report some harassing phone calls. Officer arrived and listened to the phone calls and found none of them threatening or harassing. It was unsure when the calls were made and the complainant was unable to provide suspect information except a possible name.
Tuesday, Nov. 27
8:33 a.m. A person reported that while he was away on a commercial crabbing vessel, someone “keyed” every panel on his truck, resulting in an unknown dollar amount of damage. There are no suspects in this case. The reporting person requested a report for insurance purposes, which was provided.
June 4
2:36 p.m. A person entering the U.S. at the Peace Arch Port of Entry was referred for a secondary inspection. Police were called when Customs officers found that she was in possession of a controlled substance, hashish, and drug paraphernalia, and was carrying other prescribed controlled substances not in their original containers. The Surrey, B.C., resident was issued a citation and mandatory court appearance date.
June 5
12:50 a.m. Police responded to assist a Border Patrol Agent who was contacting a suspicious person in a residential area near the border late at night. The man turned out to be a transient who had been refused entry into Canada earlier. He was not wanted by authorities and not committing any offenses. Officers thanked the man for his time, and he returned to his transience.
7 p.m. A middle school faculty member intervened with a group of teenage boys at an after-school musical event at the Performing Arts Center, near G Street. The uncooperative teens walked away and police were notified they had possibly been drinking alcohol.
Officers contacted the gaggle a few blocks away. A 15-year-old boy was arrested on investigation of possession of drug paraphernalia and for being a minor in possession of alcohol. A 16-year-old boy was in possession of a controlled substance and appeared under the influence of drugs, and was arrested.
A prescription bottle of lithium in someone else’s name, a glass smoking pipe and a partial bottle of whiskey were impounded from the kids. The 16-year-old’s level of consciousness declined during contact and he was transported to the hospital by paramedics. The parents were contacted and took custody of the boys pending their appearance in court.
June 6
12:04 a.m. Police responded to an apartment on Fourth Street after a woman who lived there reported her visiting boyfriend had thrown the furniture around. No evidence of criminal activity was found. The gentleman chose to depart at the same time as the officers, thus ending the evening’s furniture rearrangement.
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