Man in custody, accused of crime spree
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, May 24, 2001
Associated Press
FEDERAL WAY – A man was in police custody here this afternoon, blamed for a six-hour Seattle-area crime spree that included at least two robberies and four carjackings.
The man was arrested at a home between Federal Way and Auburn in south King County, Federal Way police spokesman Kurt Schwan said. A SWAT team was searching the home.
Further details were not immediately available early this afternoon. No charges had been filed and the man’s name was not released.
Five schools here were on lockdown at midday as authorities in several Seattle-area jurisdictions searched for the man in this south King County town.
The series of crimes apparently began with a robbery at a Burger King in Covington, near Kent just south of Seattle, police said
Shortly after that, at about 8:20 a.m., a man armed with a handgun approached a worker in a Renton minimart, demanding his wallet and keys to his Ford Taurus, said Renton Police Cmdr. Mark Day.
The Taurus was recovered at a south Seattle home, which the man broke into about 20 minutes after the Renton robbery. The suspect had a confrontation with residents and then left in their black Mercedes, Seattle police spokeswoman Pam McCammon said.
He then headed across Lake Washington to Bellevue, where he pulled his gun in a hotel parking lot and demanded that a woman give him keys to her vehicle at about 9:50 a.m., said Bellevue police spokeswoman Marcia Harnden. The woman complied and he left the scene in her 1996 Ford Explorer.
Seattle police recovered the black Mercedes at the hotel, Harnden said.
The man later stole another Mercedes in the Federal Way area, KOMO-TV reported. Circumstances of that seizure were not immediately clear.
Des Moines police chased that car, which crashed in a ditch outside Federal Way, KIRO-TV reported. The man fled on foot.
Camelot Elementary School, Meredith Hill Elementary School, Lake Dolloff Elementary, Kilo Junior High School and Thomas Jefferson High School were locked down, KIRO said, with students kept inside.
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