PORT ANGELES — Police were continuing to search Saturday for a man they want to question in regard to 12 car prowls — or burglaries — east of Port Angeles on Thursday.
It is unknown if the burglaries of cars at the Evergreen Collision Repair and Towing’s storage area on Thursday are connected to a spike in car and home burglaries on the North Olympic Peninsula since November that has investigators from several agencies working across two counties, Port Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Brian Smith said.
“It is very hard to deal with these things,” Smith said. “They’re hard to solve.”
“Some are connected, some aren’t,” he added. “Some overlap.”
The man police seek — Richard Ivan Huggins, 24 — is wanted by the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office and the Lower Elwha Police for investigation of eluding them on Thursday night, said Port Angeles Police Sgt. Barb McFall.
Port Angeles police want to question him as a person of interest, she said.
McFall said police found equipment stolen from Evergreen in the car that was abandoned at the end of the pursuit.
The car, an Oldsmobile Cutlass, was pursued by Elwha tribal police late Thursday for investigation of speeding before the pursuit was suspended because of unsafe actions of the driver, McFall said.
Tribal police and Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies found the car abandoned at the intersection of Lower Elwha Road and Edgewood Drive, and a Port Angeles police dog and handler tracked the two men from the car into nearby woods before losing the trail, McFall said.
A report of sale on the car filed with the state Department of Motor Vehicles said that the car had been sold to Huggins although it was registered to another person, McFall said.
Police believe Huggins was in the car. The identity of the other man in the Oldsmobile was unknown Saturday.
McFall said a tow truck driver from Evergreen who impounded the car noticed his own global positioning system — or GPS — unit in it.
“He said, ‘Hey, that’s my GPS,'” McFall said.
Huggins is described as 6-feet-4-inches-tall, weighing 255 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes, and numerous tatoos on his arms and the right side of his neck.
Task force
A multi-jurisdictional task force is investigating car prowls and home break-ins.
“Sometime in November, we started getting a huge spike in auto and residential burglaries,” Smith said.
“We’re actively working these cases.”
The task force includes the Clallam County and Jefferson County sheriff’s offices, as well as the Port Angeles Police Department, Sequim Police Department and Port Townsend Police Department.
Clallam County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Lyman Moores heads the task force. Moores and Smith declined to estimate how many burglaries have been reported since November.
Car burglary victim
Noel Vangiesen of Port Angeles said two men broke into his vehicle early Wednesday morning.
He heard a strange noise outside his South Oak Street home at about 2 a.m., and saw two men in their early 20s or late teens, wearing hooded jackets and gloves, walking up the alley.
“They went around corner of my garage and I realized they were up to no good,” Vangiesen said.
Vangiesen’s garage doesn’t face the alley, so he knew the prowlers had come onto his property.
“They started to mill around,” Vangiesen said. “I couldn’t see them.”
With a flashlight in hard, Vangiesen approached the garage and heard a loud bang.
“It sounded like a gunshot,” he said.
“They came barreling around the corner directly towards me. They looked terrified, but determined to get past me.”
The men ran past Vangiesen and down Oak Street. One was toting a bag, and the other was holding a hammer like a baton from a relay race in a track meet.
“I called the cops immediately,” Vangiesen said.
“They were there fairly quickly. They had a K9 unit.”
A window had been broken in Vangiesen’s vehicle and a diaper bag was taken, he said.
“My wife is terrified to go out in the dark and she’s a Marine,” Vangiesen said.
“She’s served in active duty, and she’s afraid to go out in the dark to and from her car.”
Smith said the best defense against car burglary is to lock the car, don’t leave valuables inside it, and phone the police if anything suspicious is seen.
Smith encouraged anyone who has information about a burglary to phone police at 360-452-4545 or Crime Stoppers at 888-242-4442.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
