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Surveillance Cameras, Plaid Lead Police to South Park Burglar

While layers of plaid might typically help one blend in on the streets of Seattle (especially when worn with a bowtie and ironic mustache), one burglar’s checkered parka made it much easier for police to find him after a break-in early this morning in South Park.

A security guard at a drywall company called 911 around 5:30 this morning after spotting a man wandering around a fenced-off area of the business in the 700 block of S. Riverside Dr. The guard saw  the suspect on surveillance video knocking over motion lights and trying to poke a security camera with a stick. The man did not appear to steal anything during the break-in.

The suspect was gone when officers arrived, but they took a look at the security camera video and noticed the suspect was wearing a particularly distinctive plaid parka.

Police searched the neighborhood around the business and spotted the suspect a few blocks away. He was still wearing his parka, which had also acquired a coating of mud.

When Officer James Pitts questioned the man, he told police he lived in an RV nearby and had been out walking around when he spotted a suspicious person on the street. This, he told officers, prompted him to return to his RV to ensure it hadn’t been burglarized. He did not offer an explanation for the accumulated mud on his coat.

Officers, unconvinced by the 44-year-old man’s story, arrested him and booked him into the King County Jail for investigation of burglary.