Crime spree jolts Seattle area

Associated Press

FEDERAL WAY — One man was in jail and another was being sought Friday after a six-hour Seattle-area crime spree that included at least two robberies and four carjackings, the King County sheriff’s office said.

The man in custody surrendered without incident at a home he had broken into between Federal Way and Auburn in south King County, sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart said. He was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of robbery, possession of stolen property and burglary. His name was not released.

An alleged accomplice remained at large.

The series of crimes apparently began with a robbery committed by two men at a Burger King in Covington, near Kent, Urquhart said.

Subsequent incidents involved reports of just one perpetrator.

Shortly after the Burger King robbery, 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 had broken 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.

At 9:50 a.m., across Lake Washington in Bellevue, a man pulled a gun in a hotel parking lot and demanded that a woman give him keys to her vehicle, Bellevue police spokeswoman Marcia Harnden said.

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 broke into a Normandy Park home, north of Des Moines, and stole another Mercedes from the male resident, Urquhart said.

Des Moines police chased that car, which crashed in a ditch outside Federal Way. The man fled on foot, and a gun was found inside the car, Urquhart said.

That was the last reported incident. The man was arrested nearby.

Five Federal Way schools — Camelot Elementary, Meredith Hill Elementary, Lake Dolloff Elementary, Kilo Junior High and Thomas Jefferson High — were locked down at midday as authorities conducted their search.