‘I was stunned’: Tacoma man gets help from police chief after 6 years of fighting to shut down neighbor’s drug house

After six years of living next to a house plagued by drugs, prostitution, and even murder, a Tacoma homeowner finally got relief when Tacoma Police Chief Patti Jackson got involved.

Sean told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio he was “stunned” when he got a phone call from Jackson herself.

“I mean, I pulled over the car because I was in the car. And I was just shocked,” Sean said. “And so we had a long conversation. It was nice to be able to pour out my heart and just go, ‘Listen, we need help. We don’t know what to do. All our neighbors are just in this really terrible situation.'”

“And I told her everything that we witnessed from the shootings and the prostitution and the car theft and the drug use, and you name it, the RVs, the homeless encampments,” he continued. “And she really just took it all in, and she said, ‘Hey, I need you to trust me.’ And apologized up and down. And she goes, ‘But we are on this. We’re well aware of that situation.’ In fact, her own words were, ‘I’ve got that house address memorized.’ And I just went, ‘OK.'”

Tacoma man wakes up to SWAT raiding the drug house next door

Sean said that a few weeks had gone by, and he started to lose hope that something would actually be done. Then, on Thursday morning, he had just woken up when he heard a loud boom.

“I was just getting my coffee, and the kids weren’t even awake yet. We heard this initial, just a very loud explosion,” he said. “I initially thought, Oh, is that a dumpster? Did somebody hit a car? I mean, I just didn’t know what to see. Come upstairs out of the office and look out our window, and there’s the SWAT, the FBI, and the DEA, all these things. So it’s just chaos.”

Sean said authorities blew out the windows of his neighbor’s house about four or five times.

“The boys came up, they grabbed their coffee, and we had a little bit of a show there for a couple of hours,” he said.

Around seven people were taken out of the house, Sean noted. He added that the nuisance property was completely surrounded.

“I’ve never seen so many different vehicles. It was quite an impressive operation,” Sean said.

Sean and his family are grateful the nightmare next door was finally addressed. He’s been trying to sell his house, and the neighboring property was dragging down its value. Now he’s waiting to see how things shake out.

“We’ve been waiting for this for so long, but now what do we do? We got to let this play out,” Sean said. “Do we sell our house, after that, and eventually get swooped up by an investor? I mean, there are so many ways this could play out, but then at the same time, we put so much heart into our home. Do we want to leave? I don’t know. It’s tough to say, but we’re just excited that finally, some action is happening.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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