A 30-year-old Seattle man crashed his stolen motorcycle and then lost his shoes while trying to lose police on Aurora Avenue early this morning.
Officers were responding to reports of gunfire near 6th Avenue North and North Dexter Street just after midnight when they spotted a man and a woman rushing through a parking lot in the 2200 block of Aurora Avenue North.
When officers stopped to talk to the pair, the man hopped on a motorcycle suddenly sped away from police, abandoning the woman, who surrendered to police.. The man drove the wrong way down a one-way dirt road before heading northbound in the southbound lanes of Aurora Avenue. The suspect eventually crashed his bike at Aurora and Queen Anne Dr. N. and fled on foot.
Police came upon the suspect’s crashed motorcycle, discovered it was stolen, and began combing the north side of Queen Anne for the man. Officer J.P. Moyer and K9 Cosmo joined the search, and followed the suspect’s trail down a set of stairs to a hillside under Aurora. There, they found a lone shoe and black motorcycle jacket, and continued further down the hill, where they came across a discarded motorcycle helmet. Cosmo continued tracking the suspect, leading officers through an apartment complex in the 2500 block of Dexter Ave. Inside the complex, police found the suspect’s second shoe, shortly before they found the now-shoeless 30-year-old man hiding under the deck of a home, and arrested him.
Police booked the man into the King County Jail for possession of stolen property and two misdemeanor warrants. Officers released the man’s female passenger after identifying and interviewing her.