Man booked after allegedly stealing ‘O’ from Tacoma Police sign, damaging front gate

A man was arrested Monday on suspicion of vandalizing the Tacoma Police Department’s (TPD) headquarters signage and attempting to damage the front gate.

At approximately 2 a.m., TPD officers were notified of a person damaging the headquarters entry gate by pushing large pieces of concrete into the structure, which would break it if forced open, according to the arrest affidavit obtained by The Tacoma News Tribune.

Suspect allegedly told officer to open the gate, knew it would break if he did

An officer arrived at 3701 S. Pine Street and found a 45-year-old man allegedly holding a piece of concrete above his head and throwing it toward the gate into TPD’s property.

As the officer approached the man and said he was not free to leave, the man replied, “I can’t put rocks in dirt?” according to documents.

The officer then investigated whether the gate was broken, and the man claimed it wasn’t by suggesting the officer try to open it.

“As of this time, the concrete pieces had not been removed from the gate,” the TPD officer’s report stated, according to The Tacoma News Tribune. “It appeared that [the suspect] solely wanted me to open the gate so that it would become damaged.”

The officer patted down the man and found a piece of metal in his front pocket, according to the affidavit. The man told the officer he found it by the TPD sign near the parking lot and asked if the officer wanted it.

Missing ‘O’ from the ‘POLICE’ sign turned up in the suspect’s front pocket

The officer eventually noticed that the letter “O” was missing from the department’s “POLICE” signage. The letter found in the man’s pocket reportedly matched the color and font of the letter missing from the sign.

Various other letters were damaged and had shiny scratches, according to the report.

The man was ultimately arrested and booked into the Pierce County Jail on charges of trespassing and malicious mischief in the second and third degree. The second-degree malicious mischief charge, which is a felony in Washington, related to the suspect’s alleged placement of the concrete in the front gate.

“Due to this being the main entry/exit to the police department, it would have caused a delay in response times to 911 calls from the citizens of Tacoma,” the officer’s report stated, according to The Tacoma News Tribune.

The suspect is slated to appear in the Pierce County Superior Court on July 27.

Follow Jason Sutich on X. Send news tips here.