By Wendy Giroux

Both suspects from last week’s incident involving a stolen patrol car and officer-involved shooting are now in custody. Charges were expected to be filed Tuesday, after Reporter deadline.

At Monday’s City Council meeting, Department of Public Safety Director Ron Elsoe gave an update about the investigation.

King County Sheriff’s deputies and Shoreline police arrested the second man Thursday evening at an apartment in the 1700 block of N.E. 145th Street. Shortly before 6 p.m., SWAT team members served a search warrant to arrest the suspect, but the 34-year-old man jumped out of a second-story window and ran.

Police caught him after a short foot chase. The man was also wanted by the Department of Corrections on an escape warrant; he is being held at the King County Jail in Seattle in lieu of $400,000 bail.

Mercer Island Officer Jennifer Franklin said the inter-agency cooperation has been vital.

“All the support we’ve gotten from Seattle, Bellevue, State Patrol, King County and others — all the people working to resolve this together is what has gotten us this close to a resolution so quickly,” Franklin said.

“I’m so impressed with our detectives. They’ve been working a ton of hours and they’re doing a great job,” she added.

The incident began at about 2 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1, when a Mercer Island officer saw a stolen Ford Explorer leave an area on the Island where a burglary and car prowl had occurred, Elsoe said. The officer tried to pull the Explorer over for erratic driving. Instead of stopping, the driver led the officer on a chase on Interstate 90 to Seattle, turned around and headed back toward Mercer Island before stopping in the Mount Baker tunnel after popping a tire and driving the wrong way through some barricades, Elsoe said.

The two suspects ran. The officer caught one of the men and tried to put him in custody, but the suspect fought and struggled. Meanwhile, the second suspect got into the patrol car and drove it to where the struggle was going on, just as a second police officer arrived to help. The suspect in the stolen patrol car rammed the responding officer’s car, and the second suspect jumped into the stolen patrol car. The first officer shot out the front tires of the car, but the suspects sped off, sending showers of sparks from the rims as they fled.

The pair got off I-90 at 77th Avenue S.E., where they crashed into a fence on North Mercer Way and got into another altercation with the officers. The driver escaped, but the second suspect was shot twice by police. That man, a 22-year-old from Seattle, has been released from Harborview Medical Center and is being held at the King County jail, Elsoe said.

The 34-year-old suspect who was arrested Thursday initially escaped from the Island, although police conducted a search on the ground with police dogs, from the air by helicopter and by boat.

Both officers who fired their guns have been placed on paid administrative leave according to standard procedure. Seattle police are investigating the portion of the incident that occurred in the Mount Baker Tunnel.

Bellevue police are investigating the shooting and were back at the scene on North Mercer over the weekend, checking for additional evidence.