Local News

Seattle police announced this morning that they have recovered a ‘substantial’ amount of wine stolen during an elaborate Thanksgiving Day heist from a Sodo wine storage business.

The wine was recovered Tuesday after police served a search warrant at a building less than a mile away from Esquin Wine & Spirits, according to police. Police say it appears the wine had been kept in a “temperature controlled environment.” There was some concern that the wine, if not properly stored, could be damaged during the recent spate of subfreezing weather.

Chuck LeFever, owner of Esquin, has issued the following statement:

Words can’t express how thrilled we are that the wine stolen from our facility on Thanksgiving Day has been safely recovered. While we are still doing an inventory to make sure it’s all there, the volume recovered makes us eager with anticipation and we can’t wait to share the good news with our customers.

Thieves made off with more than 200 cases of wine, valued at $648,000, from Esquin Wine & Spirits on Nov. 28. Dan Miller, a spokesman for Esquin, said last week the company is offering $20,000 for information that leads to the “safe recovery of the wine.”

Charged with attempted first-degree arson, second-degree burglary and second-degree theft in connection with the thefts are Luke Thesing, 35, and Samuel Harris, 34. Thesing works as a plumber for Harris’ plumbing company, charging papers say.

The men are each being held in the King County Jail lieu of $500,000 bail.

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Seattle police detectives investigating the Thanksgiving Day theft of $648,000 worth of high-end wine have contacted police in San Francisco about the theft from a wine warehouse in that city in March to see if the two cases are potentially connected, said a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department.

Samuel Harris, 34, and Luke Thesing, 35, have been charged in King County Superior Court in connection with the elaborate theft at Esquin Wine Merchants in Sodo on Nov. 28. A shipping label found in a storage locker Harris rented at Esquin led Seattle police to a San Francisco wine consultant, who said he purchased $100,000 worth of wine from Harris and another man earlier this year, according to charging documents.

A Seattle detective, researching wine thefts in the San Francisco area, came across a media report of a theft from a wine warehouse in March, charging document said.

“Seattle police have contacted us and our investigators will be talking to each other about that case,” San Francisco Police spokesman Albie Esparza said today.

In the San Francisco theft, someone cut a hole in a rolling metal door to gain access to the warehouse sometime in the overnight hours between March 26 and 27, Esparza said. At 12:01 a.m. on March 27, a motion detector inside the warehouse was activated, but when officers responded, they didn’t see anything suspicious and determined the building’s perimeter was secure, he said.

The next morning, employees found the damage to the rolling door, Esparza said. (more…)

A 16-year-old girl says a man jumped out of some bushes and grabbed her arm this afternoon near West Seattle High School, according to Seattle police.

The girl struck the man and broke free and ran to the high school to report the incident to school staff, police said. The victim was not injured.

The incident happened around 1:11 p.m. near Southwest Stevens Street and Walnut Avenue Southwest. The victim told police the man was a stranger.

Police did not immediately know if the victim is a student at the school.

She described the attacker as white, in his 30s to 40s, 5-feet-11 to 6 feet tall, medium build with shoulder-length brown hair. He wore a blue zip-up jacket and black jeans.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call 911.

In recent weeks, Seattle police have investigated a string of indecent exposure incidents outside Holy Rosary School and Westside School, both in West Seattle.

A Seattle man, Danen Romine, 34, has been charged with investigation of indecent exposure in connection with one incident. Police say he was spotted by a teenage girl masturbating inside a parked van near Chief Sealth High School on Oct. 25.

The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $235,000 to settle public-records and civil-rights lawsuits brought by a man who alleged the Seattle Police Department illegally withheld documents from him.

The sum, which includes attorney fees and costs, will be paid to Evan Sargent, who sought the documents as part of his assertion that he was assaulted by an off-duty Seattle police officer in 2009.

As part of the settlement, the city made no admission of liability.

A King County judge imposed a $70,000 fine on the Police Department for violations of the state’s Public Records Act, prompting the city to appeal.

The state Court of Appeals found the department had failed to adequately explain all of the reasons for withholding some information from Sargent’s attorneys, but said the violations were unintentional and that fine was “completely disproportionate.” The court ordered the case sent back to the King County court to refigure the fines.

The case was then appealed to the state Supreme Court, where it was pending when the settlement was reached Friday. (more…)

Seattle police homicide detectives are investigating the death of a woman whose body was found inside an Aurora Avenue North motel last night.

Seal’s Motel manager Kelly Yu said she had grown concerned about the woman, a  longterm guest, because she hadn’t seen her since Saturday. Yu asked her husband to go into the woman’s room and check on her. At around 5:30 p.m. he found the 34-year-old woman dead on the floor, Yu said.

Seattle police confirmed they are investigating the case and have deemed it suspicious. An autopsy was performed on Thursday, but the woman’s identity was not released by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Yu said the woman checked into the motel, at 12035 Aurora Ave N., on Nov. 8 as part of a contract she had with a substance abuse rehabilitation clinic. The woman was supposed to attend rehab and not have any guests in her room, Yu said.

An 83-year-old Seattle woman was attacked and robbed by three armed men who broke into her home last night, police said.

The woman was on her computer at her home in the 4900 block of 28th Avenue South just before 8 p.m. when the three men, armed with handguns and wearing ski masks, forced their way inside, according to Seattle police. The men held guns to the woman’s head and chest and dragged her around the home, demanding money.

The woman handed over a small amount of cash; the robbers took jewelry as well, police said.

After the attack, the woman ran to a neighbor’s house and called for help.

The woman later told police that a gunshot was fired inside her home, but officers have not determined whether a bullet was actually fired.

Police have not released descriptions of the suspects.

Anyone with information is asked to call 911, or the Seattle Police Robbery Unit at 206-684-5535.

Two men stole more than $600,000 worth of wine last week from a high-end wine shop/wine storage facility in Seattle’s Sodo neighborhood, according to Seattle police.

Police say the thieves tried to cover their tracks by painting over surveillance cameras and slashed gas lines in an attempt to start a fire at Esquin Wine Merchants, 2700 Fourth Ave. S.

The suspects were identified through security-camera images as two men who previously had rented a storage locker at the business, according to Seattle police. Investigators learned the men’s names through staffers at Esquin who had taken the information down when the pair signed up to rent one of the temperature-controlled storage lockers.

According to police, the two men broke into Esquin  on Nov. 27 and spray-painted the lenses of surveillance cameras and disabled motion sensors by placing plastic bags over them,  police said. Then, after stealing more than 200 cases of wine in nine separate trips the next day, they tampered with two gas lines, releasing gas into the building in an attempt to cause an explosion, police said. The two hauled out more than 200 cases of wine, according to police. The stolen wine had an estimated value of $648,000. (more…)

The Seattle police officer who fatally shot a man who fired a rifle at officers on Friday has been identified as Officer Brad Devore.

Police media relations staff said that Devore, who works as a patrol officer in the East Precinct, has been with the department for two years. Devore is on paid administrative leave, as is department policy.

The gunman, a tenant at the Elizabeth James apartment building, has not been formally identified. An official with the King County Medical Examiner’s Office said they are still trying to reach next of kin.

A woman who identified herself as the dead man’s girlfriend said she doesn’t know what could have led to him to shoot at police. She said he had a rifle but described him as “a good guy” and someone who “would give you the shirt off his back.”

Police were called to the apartment building at 23rd Avenue East and East John Street about 4 a.m. Friday on a report that there was a gunshot in the area, according to police. A woman had come out of the apartment building screaming and yelling, “He’s got a gun and he’s threatening to kill me,” said Seattle police spokeswoman Renee Witt

Officers looked up at the second floor of the building and could see a man with a rifle in an open hallway. The man yelled at officers, “I’m going to kill you,” and fired one shot at officers, Witt said. An officer fired back twice, hitting the man, police said.

SWAT team officers went into the apartment building, found the man in the hallway and performed CPR, Witt said. Medics arrived and took over, but the man died at the scene.

No one else was injured in the incident.

It’s unclear what the relationship was between the gunman and the woman who ran out of the building screaming.

A suspected drug dealer was arrested last night after he rammed a patrol car, injuring an officer, Seattle police said.

Police, posing as drug buyers, arranged by phone to meet with the suspect to purchase an ounce of methamphetamine for $1,100, according to police. When the suspect pulled into a parking lot near the Northgate Mall for the prearranged purchase, officers drove up to arrest the man, police said.

The suspect twice rammed his 2003 Mercedes-Benz into a patrol car, but was pinned in by other cars, police said. An officer suffered a minor injury when the car was rammed, according to police.

The suspect, 41, was booked into the King County Jail on drug, eluding and vehicular assault charges. A search of the man’s car turned up methamphetamine and $500 cash, police said.

A drive-by shooting occurred in South Seattle this evening, but no one was injured despite a window being shot out in a car occupied by four people, according to the Seattle Police Department.

Police responded just after 5 p.m. to a report of gunfire near the intersection of Rainier Avenue South and South College Street, according to the department’s online blotter.

Officers found a vehicle, with four males inside, that had been hit by a bullet, with the driver’s side window shot out and another window cracked. The victims told police they had no idea why anyone would open fire on them.

A witness in another vehicle told police the shot might have come from a white van.