Two teens broke into a South Seattle home early this morning, expecting to find a marijuana grow operation. They did not. Instead, one of the young men found himself 
quickly surrendering to officers after they pulled up to the home and caught him crowbar-in-hand. The second suspect fled from officers and hid for nearly a full hour, but ultimately wasn’t able to evade K9 Ziva and her keen detection skills.
Officers were called to the 11400 block of South 116th Place around 3:30 AM after a woman awoke to the sounds of someone kicking in her front door. When Officers Derek Ristau and Robert Ganem pulled up to the home, they immediately spotted an 18-year-old man with a crowbar in his hands. He quickly dropped it and surrendered to police. A second suspect, 15 years old, hopped a nearby fence and ran off.
Police began searching for the second suspect, and called in K9 team Ziva and Officer Mark Wong. Ziva picked up the 15-year-old’s scent and followed his trail through the neighborhood for nearly an hour. Ziva eventually led officers to the backyard of a home in the 6400 block of South 112th Street, where police found the teen hiding behind some furniture.
One of the suspects told officers they believed they believed they were breaking into a marijuana grow operation (again, they were not) and had burglarized the home to pay a drug debt.
Officers booked the 15-year-old into the King County Youth Service Center and the 18-year-old into the King County Jail for burglary.