In this newsletter I often try to bring you examples of extraordinary work by our officers that you will not see in a newspaper article or in a viral video.

Time, effort, tact

Last week, Officer Derek Ejde responded to a call that originally came in as a kidnapping. A foster parent reported that the biological father of one of kids had taken a foster child as well as another child during a supervised visit. After much investigation and follow up, Officer Ejde finally determined that what had actually occurred was the foster parent had decided to disregard the order of the court and allow unsupervised visits by the parent, who had now failed to return the children.

Officer Ejde spent hours coordinating between Child Protective Services, the Seattle and Federal Way police departments and the King County Sheriff’s Office to finally locate the children, who were placed with CPS and are now safe.

These kinds of cases take an amazing amount of time, effort and tact, and Derek did a great job getting these kids out of harm’s way. Well done!

Now we’ve seen everything

Early in the week, Officer Joe Corey handled a crash on Sixth Street in front of the 7-11. The driver of the pickup truck drove into a wooden utility pole.

After wrapping the front end around the pole, the driver decided it would be best to put the truck in reverse and go — which served to sever the pole completely and pull everything out of the ground.

Here’s the surprising part: the driver had a valid license and was sober. Now we have seen everything! Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Defying the laws of physics

Officer Jacob Switzer investigated a rollover collision on Sheridan Road at Cherry Avenue. The driver was not injured, and was also sober in this crash, but did not have a valid license.

She swore that she was “going about 19 mph.” Scotty from “Star Trek” would say, “That defies the laws of physics, Captain!” We are thinking more like 40 or 50 — or more.

Time for that nightly stroll

Along with other departments in the area, we have had a rash of stolen older Hondas over the last several weeks.

Tuesday night, officers Derek Ejde and Trevor Donnelly happened upon a spray-painted older model Honda with the serial number plate conspicuously obscured in the window.

Using their Cop-Spidey Sense, they surveilled the Honda for several hours. When they observed a man return to the vehicle, they went to contact him and ask a few questions.

The man suddenly remembered he needed to go on an evening run through the neighborhood, pursued by officers who helped motivate him to run faster. His wind sprint culminated in an unfortunate fall from a small embankment, where he was taken into custody.

The man had an arrest warrant from the Dept. of Corrections and “shaved” keys in his pocket. The car turned out to be stolen, and the color, plates and grill had all been altered.

It turns out the man had led the Poulsbo Police Department on a high speed chase a few weeks ago. He went to jail on numerous charges. Awesome job by Officers Ejde, Donnelly, and Hughes.

Butt dial leads to arrest

Finally this week, here is a suspect who learned that butt dialing can be more than just embarrassing.

Officers responded to an address on Cherry Avenue for an open phone line to 911, on which a very angry-sounding woman could be heard making comments to a man, presumed to be her boyfriend. There was also mention of scratch tickets and illegal activities.

When officers got to the area, she could be heard saying that she “saw the police” and would “not be going to jail.” She was seemingly clairvoyant, but that prediction was wrong. Officers located her, and she tried to give a fake name. That didn’t work either, and she went to jail for an outstanding arrest warrant for trafficking in stolen property.

The jail takes away inmates’ cell phones, so she should be able to avoid this problem, at least for a while.

— Bremerton Police Chief Steven Strachan