Drunken brawl, shoplifting lead to ‘major arrest’ in Lynnwood

What started as a drunken brawl ended with a major arrest in Lynnwood this month, police said Thursday.

On May 3, an officer was called to Alderwood Mall, where a drunk man was fighting with security. Police said that the situation was handled quickly. But mall staff pointed out an unrelated suspect who they said had just tried to shoplift and was getting away. An officer caught him, and that is when police said in a Facebook post, “things got messy.”

Commander Joe Dickinson said the suspect told them he had taken the bus to the mall, but he had a BMW key fob in his pocket, Dickinson said.

Drunken fight leads to major theft arrest

“Alderwood Mall’s got tons of video cameras,” Dickinson said. “So it didn’t take long to figure out he came in a vehicle.”

That vehicle was a stolen BMW.

“It just kept unraveling from there,” Dickinson said.

Inside the stolen car, police found a ballistic vest, vehicle theft tools, a controlled substance, and a stolen semiautomatic rifle.

“As officers kept investigating, they discovered that ‘oh my gosh, okay, we’ve got a stolen firearm, we’ve got ballistic armor and other stolen property that’s probably gonna tie this individual to other thefts.’”

And it turns out the suspect was wanted on multiple felony and misdemeanor warrants, including two counts of possession of a stolen vehicle and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Police said he “now faces a laundry list of new charges on top of his existing warrants.”

Frank Lenzi is the News Director for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here.

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