Suspect Escapes Police After Running From Stolen Car on Finn Hill

Kirkland police tracked with a K-9 unit and the help of a King County helicopter but failed to catch a suspect early Thursday morning who fled from a stolen vehicle on Finn Hill.

An officer encountered the man standing at the open trunk of a car full of property stopped on the street in the 9000 block of NE 145th Street. That’s on northeast Finn Hill near Simonds Road.

Kirkland Police Department spokesman Lt. Mike Murray said man went to get his identification from the vehicle, but slammed the door closed and took off running south on 88th Avenue NE.

The vehicle proved to have been stolen earlier in Kirkland. Police established a perimeter and called in a K-9 unit, along with the King County Sheriff’s Office’s Guardian One helicopter. But the suspect got away.

Murray said there were no of reports of burglaries in the area at the time. “It was just a guy driving a stolen car,” he said. “But there were no burglary reports.”

Police encountered the man at about 11:45 p.m., and the search continued until after 1 a.m. Murray said the car was impounded and Kirkland police will seek to obtain a search warrant on it.

Just Tuesday morning, Feb. 5, Kirkland police captured a suspect fleeing a residential burglary in the same area just blocks away. See that story here.