Coulee Cops

Grand Coulee

8/12 - A man pulled on Alcan Road near the rodeo grounds was cited for driving with no valid operator’s license, no insurance, an expired registration, and a disfigured plate. Complicating matters further, the vehicle had been registered to a woman who had reported the vehicle stolen in 2016 to Wenatchee police. The police there considered it a civil matter due to the owner having let a friend borrow it, but who later sold it. Because of the uncertainty of the situation, the officer had the vehicle impounded. The driver and passenger collected their things and left with their friend.

8/13 - A woman struck a deer on SR-155, rendering her 2017 vehicle undrivable. The woman asked an officer to do a collision report and provided the officer with insurance information. The officer was unable to locate the deer.

- Responding to a report of a man sleeping outside near Martin Road and O’Sullivan, an officer found a highly intoxicated man and took him to his desired destination, the Coulee Dam Casino.

- A highly intoxicated woman was taken from Grand Coulee Avenue to Coulee Medical Center by ambulance. She did not wish to speak with the officer.

- A woman on Main Street reported items missing, including a TV. She thought her caretaker had taken them. An officer contacted the caretaker, who said she was advised to remove expensive items while the complainant was away. The officer explained that the complainant had returned, and the caretaker said she would return the items before the end of the day.

- A woman was taken to Grant County Jail for violating a no-contact order after she allegedly threw a machete at a man with the order against her, on Grand Avenue in Electric City, where he lives. The machete handle hit the man in the leg. Police found the woman in the residence, hiding under the bathroom sink. The woman was charged with second-degree assault, obstructing law enforcement, and resisting arrest.

- A man lying on Grand Coulee Avenue was intoxicated and off of his medication. The officer helped put him to bed and told his teenage sons to call if there were any issues. The sons called and said their father kept falling down. It was determined the man was off his medications because he couldn’t afford them. The man and the sons were taken to their uncle’s house for the night.

8/14 - A man at Coulee Medical Center apparently wanted help but refused it from the hospital, standing outside with his arms crossed. He said he didn’t want help from the officer either and left after about three minutes.

8/15 - Campers at Coulee Playland reported that a woman had said “hello” to them near their tent. An officer located a woman, who said she was on her cell phone, which they must have overheard. The officer suggested she keep the noise to a minimum.

- A total of $140 was reported stolen from the Fusion Cafe.

- A woman was taken to Grant County Jail after she was seen on Grand Avenue and a warrant for drug possession was confirmed.

8/17 - A neighbor reported that he saw a male climb into a neighbor’s house. The owner said it was probably her granddaughter’s boyfriend and she could handle it.

- An Electric Boulevard resident reported his battery charger and stereo were taken from his pontoon boat, each worth about $250.

- An officer was unable to locate two dogs and a cat reported to be inside of a car with the windows rolled up at Safeway.

- A burglar alarm went off on Pearl when the owners were moving things into the residence and didn’t have time to reset the alarm.

8/18 - Someone apparently stood on a garbage can to access a window at the Jack’s Spring Canyon gas station. The person appears to have taken a fan from the window, but after knocking over a small fridge, did not enter the store.

- An intoxicated man at the Grand Coulee Center Lodge was found to be asleep in a chair outside of the office of the motel. The man was awakened and, wanting a ride to Nespelem, was taken to the casino in Coulee Dam instead.

- There was cigarette burn damage to a chair and mattress at the Center Lodge motel. Photographs were taken.

8/19 - A truck rolled and came to a stop on its wheels near the silos on SR-174 after turning from Burdin Boulevard. The officer found a man and woman hugging at the scene, with the man having been bloodied in the accident. The man went to the nearby hospital to be treated. The officer spoke with the woman, the driver of the truck. The officer noted beer cans and a vodka bottle that had been thrown from the truck. She was cited with a DUI after Washington State Patrol administered a sobriety test. She spoke with an attorney and then went to the hospital to meet back up with her boyfriend and possibly be treated herself. The truck was towed.

- An officer couldn’t find a barking dog on E Street.

- A 19-year-old man was found sleeping in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked near the lower softball field at North Dam Park. The officer had a hard time waking him, eventually knocking on his chest while telling him to wake up. The man woke up and blew a 0.17 in a blood-alcohol-content test, more than double the legal limit. At one point, the man handed the officer a stick of deodorant, to which the officer reminded him he was looking for a license or registration. The man was issued a citation for being a minor in possession, told he could get his car the next day, and taken to a friend’s house.

8/20 - A Burdin Boulevard woman said her neighbors yelled at her. The officer spoke to the neighbors, who said the woman was upset that someone walked across her yard. The police report noted the woman had a tendency to call 911 when people walked on her yard or looked at her.

- A reported burglary on Burdin Boulevard turned out to be an ex-boyfriend getting his belongings.

Coulee Dam

8/10 - A 55-inch breakroom television, an iPad, and several bottles of liquor were stolen from the Melody restaurant. An officer took photographs of the scene, and a door that had been pried open.

8/12- A woman on River Drive was checked on by an officer at the behest of her granddaughter. The woman was doing fine and told the officer she would call her granddaughter.

8/15 - While investigating a report of a suicidal man who may be staying at the Columbia River Inn, an officer couldn’t find anyone matching the name or description. The report had come from a veterans hotline, and when talking to them a woman told the officer the man was looking at a sign that said “Cascade Lock.” The officer said that wasn’t here, and the woman thanked the officer for looking.

8/17 - A Ferry Avenue man allegedly struck his 6-year-old daughter with an open hand to discipline her. The daughter had a swollen lip. The officer wrote in his report that there was probable cause to charge the man with assault of a child in the third degree. The man had gone to work on a graveyard shift when the officer tried to speak to him. The officer spoke to the mother of the child.

- A woman reported that a man had left while intoxicated with her child in the vehicle. The man returned while she was reporting the incident to police. He then took off on foot. No charges were filed.

- Near the Columbia View Apartments, there was yelling and rocks thrown between a man and his girlfriend, and the father of her child and his friend. Each group said it was the other that had instigated the rock throwing. One party thought a baby had been injured in the rock throwing. The situation continued as the man, his friend, and a woman followed the man and his girlfriend in their car, confronting them at The Star newspaper parking lot, and kicking their truck. The truck then headed toward Crown Point, still followed by the others, but eventually losing them and heading back to the Grand Coulee Police department, where an officer spoke to its occupants. The officer then returned to the apartment of the other party and spoke to them. A girl’s shoes matched prints on the kicked truck door. The officer told all parties the situation could have been handled better than it was.

- Via a built-in GPS signal, a Macbook Air was tracked to a residence on the corner of Civic and Pine. The resident said he found the computer in the parking lot of the Walmart in Omak and gave it to the officer, who thanked the man for his cooperation. The officer then met the owner of the laptop at the Coulee Dam Casino, where she had driven from Omak to retrieve it.

8/18 - A garage door on Tulip Street kept opening and closing on its own. Nothing appeared to have been taken.