A gasoline-chugging burglary suspect was caught as he sat in the garage of the home he was accused of breaking into last week in Washington.
Seattle Police said they received a call Friday morning as a 17-year-old girl claimed a man with a wooden stick had attempted to enter her parent’s home around 11:30 a.m.
“In fear for the life safety of the juvenile, officers breached the front door to make entry and began to search for the 17-year-old female victim and the suspect,” a statement from the Seattle Police Department read.
During the search, officers heard banging coming inside the home and found the 40-year-old man sitting in the front seat of the car with a red gasoline can and hammer in his lap.
As police approached the car, the suspect put a nozzle to his mouth and began drinking gasoline before placing the container back down and wiping his mouth, according to the police bodycam footage.
The suspect remained locked inside the truck, attempting to negotiate with them and pleading he “didn’t want no problems.”
Police broke the driver-side window and the suspect took it as a reason to take another swig of gasoline.
“What the…,” one officer said on the footage.
Several officers pulled the suspect out of the car and restrained him on the ground.
The 17-year-old girl was found on the second floor by police and brought to safety.
The man was treated by paramedics and later booked into King County Jail for residential burglary.
According to data from Seattle police, the Washington city has experienced over 22,000 property crimes this year with burglaries being second most on the list with approximately 4,750 offenses, but with only 602 arrests being made in 2023.
Recent data from the US Census Bureau found nearly a quarter-million residents wanted to leave the Emerald City because of the rising crime, making the 7.2% of people wanting to flee the crime, is the highest of any city in the country.
Crime in the city had become so rampant that a veteran cop resigned from the Seattle police force, but not before she blasted the city’s failed leadership.
“The toxic mix of the Seattle City Council’s absurdity, the spinelessness of the Mayor, the leniency of the prosecutor’s office, and your failed leadership has accelerated this city’s downhill slide straight to rock bottom. The problems were already brewing before you came on the scene, but since your arrival, it’s been a free fall into anarchy & chaos,” former Seattle Police Lt. Jessica Taylor said in her 15-page resignation letter on Aug. 1.