Recently, Officers and Detectives from both the Kirkland and Bellevue Police Departments worked together to capture a burglar targeting storage lockers in apartment building garages.
At 4:30 a.m. on January 23rd, an alert Kirkland Police Officer on patrol in south Kirkland near the Bellevue city limits noticed a white pickup truck driving with a registration that had expired over three years prior. The Officer stopped the truck for the registration infraction and noticed that, despite the heavy rain at the time, several cardboard boxes filling the truck’s bed were dry as if having just been loaded into the vehicle. The officer also noticed the boxes had address labels from Pokemon, a local company, and were addressed to a nearby resident of an apartment building in Bellevue. While Kirkland Police detained the driver, 52-year-old Lynnwood resident Kelly B. Wick, another Officer went to the Bellevue resident’s apartment, woke him up, and discovered that his storage locker where he kept thousands of dollars of Pokemon merchandise had, indeed, just been broken into. The victim accompanied the Kirkland Police officer to the location of the traffic stop where Wick was being detained and confirmed that the boxes of Pokemon merchandise in Wick’s truck had been stolen from his storage unit, prompting Wick’s arrest.
Kirkland Police alerted Bellevue Police and, over the next few days, Bellevue Police Detectives discovered video evidence of Wick committing the burglary. Wick was booked into King County Jail and subsequently charged with one count of second degree burglary and one count of criminal trespass.
This case is yet another example of the close collaboration between police departments on the eastside.
Bellevue Beat Blog 