Four men are in jail and three handguns are off the street after bicycle officers made the arrests while monitoring bar closing in Belltown early this morning.
At around 2:00 am, bike officers were in the 2100 Block of 1st Avenue, watching over things as the bars were closing. One of the officers was approached by the victim of a car prowl. The victim provided a detailed description of the suspects and their last known location. The bike officers quickly found the suspects inside a parked car in a nearby parking lot and contacted them. During that contact, the person seated in the driver’s seat was found to be in possession of a handgun in his waistband. He did not have a permit to carry a gun, so he was arrested. The other three individuals in the car were arrested for theft, property damage and vehicle prowling. One of the suspects was found to be in possession of a small amount of crack cocaine. Officers also located a stolen handgun inside the car.
Earlier in the evening, the officers had cited five cars for being illegally parked in a bus zone in the 100 Block of Blanchard Street. Three of those cars were impounded by a towing company. During an inventory search of the impounded cars, the tow company employees located a handgun inside one of the cars. An officer responded to the tow lot to recover the gun. The guns were recovered during bar closing, which most likely prevented a shooting from occurring.
