Police make burglary bust, catch meth user, nab sex offender

Busy pre-Fourth weekend for Ocean Shores officers

The weekend before the Fourth of July was very busy for Ocean Shores Police, and Sgt. David McManus said it had nothing to do with fireworks. It all began with a simple traffic stop and the excellent observational skills of an Ocean Shores officer, McManus said in a new release on Monday.

At 7:18 a.m. on Saturday June 30, Ocean Shores Officer J.J. Justman stopped a car driven by a 43-year old Ocean Shores man who had a suspended driver’s license. As Justman was dealing with the subject, he noticed an insurance card on the back seat of the car. He recognized the name on the card as the victim of a recent burglary in which several firearms were stolen, the news release said.

A search warrant for the car was obtained, and Justman recovered several items stolen in the same burglary. Other evidence in the car connected the crime to a residence in the 700 block of S. Rain St. NE, which has been a source of ongoing problems for the community, McManus said.

Justman also obtained a search warrant for the house, and six Ocean Shores officers and a Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Deputy raided the house in the evening. One subject (a 26-year old resident of the house) was arrested for felony possession of stolen property, McManus said. Several more items of property stolen during the burglary were recovered from the house.

While the house was being searched, Sgt. Kyle Watson left the scene to return to patrolling the city. Only a few minutes later, he stopped a speeding car and arrested a 52-year old man for driving with a revoked license, McManus said. The man was found to be in possession of methamphetamine, and was booked at the Grays Harbor County Jail. This stop was unrelated to the search warrants being served.

As the officers did further investigation into the burglary, McManus said, they made contact with people in a house in the 400 block of Duck Lake Dr. SE. A resident there gave the officers a false name, but after checking computer records, police found the 51-year old man had a previous conviction for child molestation, and he was living in Ocean Shores without registering as a sex offender. He was arrested for the felony charge of failure to register as a sex offender, and was also arrested on two felony warrants, the news release said.

The investigation into the burglary is continuing, and more arrests are very likely in the near future, according to McManus.