Snoqualmie Police and an allied SWAT team captured the suspect in two armed robberies in North Bend, following a seven-hour siege of a downtown Snoqualmie apartment.
The latest robbery occurred about 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 6. Police said a masked man entered the Carter’s store in the North Bend Premium Outlets mall, and threatened the store clerk, who was alone.
Witnesses said the suspect, described as a having Asian or Native-American features, in his mid-20s, wearing a dark sweatshirt, brandished a handheld stun weapon.
In the security video, police saw a masked man enter the Carter’s store in the mall, then leave the store a short time later and drive off in a dark four-door sedan.
The suspect “presented a Taser and wanted all the money in the till, which he did get,” Police Captain Nick Almquist said. The store clerk was unharmed in the incident.
The description was similar to a robbery that happened earlier in the week at the Claire’s store, also at the mall. The man stole about $150 from Claire’s and $350 from Carter’s. Officers also had a description of the man’s dark-colored Mazda sedan.
Snoqualmie police had newly joined Twitter, so Almquist posted the descriptions online Thursday. By 10 p.m., he had his first tip. A second followed around 3 a.m. Friday, leading officers to the alley between River and Newton Streets in downtown Snoqualmie, where the suspect had parked his car in a rear-facing apartment.
Until the standoff ended, police didn’t know if the suspect was armed.
“We always err on the side of officer safety,” Almquist said. Besides the report of the handheld stun gun, a witness had reported that the suspect had carried a gun in the Claire’s robbery.
As police arrived, they saw the suspect, moving around and looking in his truck. When he spotted police, he ran into the house.
“We spotlighted the house, and made sure he wasn’t coming out,” Almquist said.
Police had the house surrounded from about 3 a.m. until about 10 a.m., when they broke their way inside.
“You always try to negotiate to get them out peacefully,” Almquist said. “If they don’t, you have to go in, tactically.”
Officers managed to get the suspect’s number, and called him on a department-issued phone. He texted back, “trying to figure out who we were,” Almquist said. That exchange didn’t last long. Almquist said police learned through a family member of the suspect that he probably ran out of prepaid minutes on his phone.
Officers hailed the suspect multiple times, with no response. Police used a loudspeaker on a car to announce that they had a search warrant for the building, but not an arrest warrant for the suspect, and that they weren’t leaving.
That negotiation didn’t go anywhere. The suspect was silent inside his apartment. So, officers used a ram to break in the door.
“In the process of smashing the door, they presented themselves,” Almquist said. “They complied right away.”
After he surrendered, the suspect was placed in a police car. Officers began to search the apartment. An interview with both the man and his girlfriend followed at the police station.
The girlfriend is also in her mid-20s.
Almquist praised the response from neighboring Redmond and the Coalition of Small Police Agencies, who shared SWAT team members and special equipment.
“This is how it’s supposed to work,” he said.
