Side story - Caught in a Seattle Police Chase

I often find it interesting how seeing something on TV or in a movie can trigger a vivid memory of mine. Many times it has to do with travel, a scene in London will remind of wandering down Piccadilly Street, or the view of the mall in DC reminds me of the some crazy late night “adventures”, I see a location where I have been and all of a sudden I remember some random detail or event. Last week I was watching the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy (the most intense season finale of any show I have ever seen) and I found myself yelling at show, where is the rest of your swat team because I was suddenly brought back to the time I was caught in the middle of a police chase in Seattle.

Let me set the scene for you, it was July 1, 2008. I had been in Seattle for about a week at this point, for the start of the 9 week cross continental bike tour, called Sea to Sea that I was working on. In that week I had arrived in Seattle, finalized last minute details for the tour, met the 145 cyclists and 26 support staff, coordinated the weekend orientation, participated in a public celebration service, saw the cyclists dip their tires in the pacific ocean, dealt with the first fall, injury and hospital visit, and made sure things were all set for the first night in camp – nothing stressful at all. The night before I had left the tour and stayed at my cousin’s house, to spend a little time with her and her husband while I was in town. That night I was taking the red eye home. My cousin took the afternoon off of work so we could do some touristy things, so I decide to run downtown that morning to pick up some gifts for my nephew and nieces, and to make some rental car arraignments (in person since I was getting conflicting answers on the phone) for my trip to Seattle in September.

Prior to this morning, I had only been downtown once, but thought I remembered how to get there with out getting directions, and knew I had a map with me. I did fine, got off at James Street, but then turned the wrong way. I knew I was going the wrong direction as soon as it happened and looked for the first side street to turn around. The first street is 9th Ave, and that is right in the medical area of the University of Washington. I turned the corner and pulled over to check the map to find a street to take me back towards downtown. All of sudden, out of no where a tan/gold Jeep Grand Cherokee came flying past followed by a multitude of police vehicles. There must 40 – 50 police cruisers and motorcycles in pursuit of the Jeep. After the first 5 or 10 went by, I looked over at this older woman standing on the sidewalk at the bus stop and we just look at each other with a “what the heck is going on” look. After a few minutes (and I am not exaggerating here) the police vehicles stopped coming and I once again looked at my new friend on the side walk, non verbally asking do you think it is safe to go? We kind of nodded and said, I think it is okay, and I pulled away from the curb, thinking my adventure was over.

9th Avenue there turns into 8th and that bring you to Yesler Way, which would take me to where I wanted to go. As I got to the corner of 8th and Yesler, I once again found myself in the middle of this crazy scene – several of the police vehicles were parked all over the area and the officers were on foot, some running, looking for something or someone. At this point I was really wondering what was going on and called my sister to see if she could find anything online about what was happening. She was not able to find anything so I continued on. My plan was to head over to the Pike’s Place Market area and park, from there I could walk to the places I wanted to go. I planned to take Yesler to 1st Ave and cut over. As I was making my way, I began to hear the helicopters over head. I began to think, obviously something big is going on. I turned down 1st Ave and went for a couple blocks until the road was blocked off by the police and I saw that the Jeep was stopped in the middle of the street with several swat teams approaching the vehicle. As much as there was a part of me that wanted to stay and see what happened, the sensible part of me thought I should get out of there and go someplace safe.

I then cut over to Alaska Way and was right near the rental car place, so I decided to go there. I went in to make a reservation and saw the 4 or 5 helicopters circling the area. Thankfully they had a TV on and I asked what was going on. It was at that point I found out there had been a bank robbery and police chase and there was now a stand off on 1st Ave. I watched with the reservation specialist for a few minutes and actually corrected some of the information that was being reported. For one, they were reporting it was a black truck and I said, actually I am pretty sure it was a tan Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was at that point that the whole scene became very surreal, and it hit me that I was seriously caught in the middle of a police chase, I could be a witness. After making the reservation I continued down Alaska way and found a place to park there. I decided to go to some of the souvenir stores in the area, instead of trying to go back near the crime scene. The robbery was the talk of everyone at that point and in one store I learned that one of the suspects had jumped out of the Jeep at Yesler and 8th while the vehicle was moving. That explained what had been going on at the corner as I passed, and it was little scary, considering I was only a couple minutes behind the Jeep, and chances are the suspect had not been caught yet as I passed by.

After I finished my shopping and learning more and more details about what had happened I began to make some phone calls, to my sister again who had found the story online and filled in some final details, like the fact that the police had shot the man in the Jeep on 1st Ave. I also called a couple friends to tell them about the craziest thing that had just happened. I was then done with my errand downtown and went on with my day, not giving what had happened too much more thought, other than mentioning it to my cousins. A couple days later, once I was home, I looked up the details of the story, which you can find here http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008027502_webbankrobbery01m.html

This is just one of the many crazy stories I have, but don’t often think of or share, until something like Grey’s Anatomy brings back the memory, because I know the Seattle law enforcement community can capture two suspects in a vehicle driving all over the city much quicker than it took them to find a lone gun man in one building.