Police nab $300K in warrant roundup

It was a bad day to be a criminal slacker in South Kitsap on Friday.

A team of 10 sheriff’s deputies and 10 state patrol troopers scoured the south end of the county from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m., hauling in every criminal with a habit of avoiding court appearances. Altogether, they nabbed 36 people with a total $323,000 worth of warrants out on them.

State patrol spokesman Trooper Glen Tyrrell said most criminals they picked up seemed surprised by the visit.

“We call them and do everything so we don’t have to go out and get them, but they ignore that,” Tyrrell said.

The round-up was supposed to focus on misdemeanor warrants, but Tyrrell said some of the criminals had multiple warrants out on them — seven had felony warrants. After those nabbed finished their trip through district court for the misdemeanor warrants, those with outstanding felony warrants were booked into Kitsap County Jail. Their cases will be handled by Kitsap County Superior Court.

One or two nabbed by the patrol Friday were pricey collars.

One man who lived on the border between Kitsap and Mason counties had more than $56,000 of warrants out on him — $46,000 of that was overdue child support payments, Tyrrell said.

A Port Orchard man was picked up on a $50,000 warrant for failing to register as a sex offender.

However, most of the warrants were pretty pedestrian.

“Most of them were for driving while suspended,” Tyrrell said.

As effective as the emphasis patrol was, Tyrrell said it didn’t even begin to make a dent in the amount of outstanding warrants in Kitsap County.

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