Four facing felony charges for Ocean Shores Halloween night tagging spree

The Ocean Shores Police Department investigation into a Halloween night tagging spree has resulted in felony charges against three adults and one juvenile, according to Sgt. Dave McManus.

The department is filing felony charges with the Grays Harbor County Prosecutor’s Office against the four “because they did probably well over $2,000 in damage across the city,” said McManus.

Numerous businesses were hit, along with street signs and vehicles.

“There were probably 15-20 victims all through the downtown area and in various neighborhoods,” said McManus. “One of the police buildings, several signs, we had businesses spray painted, a couple of cars and license plates, street signs.”

The police building hit was a storage shed outside the fenced police department building.

“There they spray painted the word ‘pig,’” said McManus. “Kind of obvious to figure out the motive on that one.”

Otherwise, the majority of the spray painting was just random. However, McManus said one referenced one of the suspects’ ex-boyfriend.

“He’s not sure why she bothered to write something bad about him on the sign, they had broken up a year previous and it was amicable,” said McManus.

Ocean Shores Police Officer Kyle Frank, a new officer on the force, took the lead “and did a great job of tracking everything down,” said McManus. “He got video from businesses, one showing a suspect buying the spray paint at the Ace Hardware here in Ocean Shores and using her Ace rewards card when she bought it.”

While video didn’t show any of the tagging in progress, it showed not only the purchase of the paint by one of the suspects, but suspects walking toward where the tagging was discovered.

“A couple of suspects admitted to what they did,” said McManus.

Some of the tagging took place outside the city limits and the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office handled those incidents.

“It was at Illahee,” said McManus. “Deputy Byron worked on that one and also did some great follow-up work on them, and he is the one who got the initial confession.”

Another tagging incident was reported at an Ocean Shores church the night of Nov. 2 and is believed to be unrelated to the Halloween vandalism. “It definitely was gang-type tagging,” said McManus. “That’s not something we have in the Shores so whenever we see that we assume it’s tourists. Even bad guys from Tacoma take a weekend to go the beach.”