Everett woman says police refused to search stolen car full of needles

Sidney Shea was shocked at what she and her family found when her brother’s car was stolen from Everett last weekend.

After an evening of drinking at a pub downtown Everett, Shea’s brother decided to Uber home rather than put his own life and the lives of others at risk by driving. When he returned to his car the next day, it was no longer parked outside the pub.

Two days later, police found the car by Mariner High School. However, when Shea’s family went to retrieve the car, it was not the same vehicle — at least, not on the inside.

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“It looked like someone had actually been living in there over the weekend,” Shea described.

Bags of clothing and notebooks were found in the car, but the most shocking discovery was a black bag of about 150 needles under the seat.

Shea and her family members put on gloves and went through the rest of the car with more caution.

“As we went through more stuff, we found an entire drug kit that had more needles, it had their spoons, and other paraphernalia,” Shea said.

Upon finding the drug materials, the family called police. Shea said that they had been pleased with the police response before then, but that things started to go downhill at this point.

“They never searched the car when they originally found it — they just towed it,” she said.

Additionally, she said, the sheriff’s office was “actually pretty upset that they had to come over to us and retrieve all the needles.”

No law enforcement officer offered to conduct a more thorough search of the vehicle, Shea said.

In a previous incident in Portland, Shea’s car had been stolen. Then, she said, a police officer had carefully searched the car to make sure she wouldn’t be pricked by any needles.

“Having that prior knowledge, I was kind of frustrated that the police officer up here didn’t actually want to go through the car, was upset to come get all the needles,” she said.

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The thieves had left behind personal information in the bags that revealed their identities. However, when Shea tried to turn this information over to law enforcement in the hopes of catching the crooks, she said that she had no luck.

“They didn’t even want to get any information on the people who stole the car,”  Shea said.

She said that the family was told to shred the documents.

“We had information for who took it, we had all the needles — I don’t know what more that they would necessarily want, I feel like that’s what you would need in a police investigation” Shea said. “It’s frustrating to just think that they’re allowing these people to just continue to be out on the streets and continue to do this.”

Having seen firsthand the response from law enforcement in a case concerning drug use and vehicle theft, Shea feels betrayed as a taxpayer.

“It makes me question — where are my tax dollars going and what are they actually doing to try and stop this issue around the neighborhood?” she said.