This is a second in a two-part series:

On Aug. 26, 2013, a Kirkland police officer approached the owner of the home located on Finn Hill in the 8200 block of NE 142nd Street. The officer explained to him the extent of alleged and actual criminal activity occurring at the residence for years. The owner, who had an address in Bellevue, said that while he knew his son had drug problems in the past, he was completely unaware of any of the incidents, investigations or arrests. In fact, he added, no one was supposed to be living in the home other than his son, who paid for the utilities but not rent. The officer warned him that if things didn’t change the city would shut down the house, to which the owner promised to fix the problems.

The first raid

Months prior to this meeting, the first of two raids on the home occurred on April 15, 2013, when a SWAT team entered the house as part of an investigation into a recent burglary in the area. At the burglarized residence, just blocks away from the alleged drug house, police had discovered a cell phone belonging to the owner’s then 46-year-old son. Accompanying the officers during the raid was a U.S. Secret Service member, who was investigating possible counterfeiting.

During the raid, the police discovered eight people living there, three of whom were arrested. Many of them admitted they were heroin addicts and that the son, who took care of the home for his father, did not make them pay rent; later that year, though, police would respond to a domestic disturbance at the house in which the owner’s son got into a dispute with a roommate who refused to pay rent.

Officers also found the condition of the house to be nothing short of appalling, according to police documents. The rooms were filled with garbage and filth. The entire house stank with mildew. Extra precaution had to be taken in order to avoid the countless exposed needles in nearly every room. Metal spoons with burn marks were a common sight, as well as stolen property. In the downstairs bathroom, there were three syringes in the toilet, as someone attempted to flush them prior to the raid.

In one occupant’s room, there was a blown up version of his state driver’s license on a ledge, which was an illegal copy of his own, in what officers determined was an attempt to print copies. They also found the stolen green card taken from a burglary victim’s home.

The room where the owner’s son lived, police documents claim, was the filthiest of all. It was crammed so full of things officers had trouble getting inside to search it. They found so much garbage littering the floor they finally decided it constituted a health and safety risk and limited their search.

Another occupant’s room was so full of junk the bedroom door had been completely blocked off, forcing officers to access it through the hallway bathroom’s connecting door.

More disturbing discoveries, however, occurred prior to the raid, when police ordered the occupants to come out and one of the men emerged from the front door with an infant. The man was later determined to be the father. The child was turned over to the mother, who also lived in the house with the father but was at work during the raid – she was reportedly the only occupant to be clean as well as have a full-time job.

The mother was adamant to police about there being no drugs in the bedroom where she and her child lived and that she did not use herself. Police later determined that she was telling the truth, but she was warned that if she was found living there again with the child Child Protective Services would intervene.

Prisoner’s dilemma

Ultimately, however, even a SWAT raid couldn’t stop the house from acting as a hub for criminals. Within the same month, officers were dispatched to the residence yet again for drug-related activity after three suspicious-looking men had arrived and parked their vehicle near the house, then went inside. When an officer arrived he observed the people inside the house and waited until three of them left to return to their vehicle. After speaking to them he quickly realized at least two of them, a 22-year-old white man and a 24-year-old black man, were high on heroin. When he questioned the 22-year-old, after having them all sit on the curb, he denied they had used heroin, even as his arms were covered with fresh needle injections. He also spoke so quietly and incoherently he had to repeat himself numerous times before the cop could understand him.

The cop then turned to the black man, who had fallen asleep on the curb, requiring another suspect to wake him. The suspect also denied using heroin, saying “nah man, if I was high don’t you think I’d be falling asleep? I’m just really tired.”

When the officer asked for their names, they came up as having suspended drivers licenses, while the third individual, a 17-year-old boy, had an invalid license.

The cop questioned the 17-year-old privately, who claimed the other two men had asked him to drive them up to the house to watch a movie. While there, the two men had left the room with another man shortly after arriving.

Suddenly, the 17-year-old began to hyperventilate and his face turned red. He told the officer he is prone to panic attacks. As the cop went to walk away from him he sat down in the middle of the road with his hands behind him on the ground and started bouncing his feet up and down.

The cop watched him and then called an aid car.

Two aid cars arrived, but the personnel were unable to get the 17-year-old to calm down and initially decided to take him to the hospital. Twenty minutes later, however, he was able to calm down.

Meanwhile, the cop’s investigation continued. He asked the 22-year-old if he had weapons, to which he replied he didn’t, but he had some “rigs” left in his pockets. A pre-consented search produced used needles.

At this point, the cop separated the two men and spoke with the 22-year-old alone, telling him they would test the needles for heroin.

It was then the 22-year-old started to confess. Yes, they had come to the house to get high on heroin. Yes, the 24-year-old had brought heroin with him. In fact, he claimed, the 24-year-old had sold drugs to someone in the house and probably had drugs still on him.

As for himself, the 22-year-old claimed to have only used one or two needles.

After revealing all this information to the officer about his partner, the 22-year-old added, “Don’t tell him I told you, though.”

With this knowledge in mind, the officer gave the 24-year-old about ten minutes by himself before he started questioning him. The man insisted he had no drugs on him.

The officer called his bluff, claiming to have been told by everyone in the house that he had drugs.

“Why would they tell me that?” the officer inquired of him.

The bluff worked. The 24-year-old said he wanted to talk, alone. When the officer asked where, he replied “where the white guy can’t see us.”

They walked a short distance before the 24-year-old revealed that the 22-year-old had lied about his first name because he had outstanding warrants for his arrest.

“The first thing he said when we saw you coming up on us was ‘Oh (expletive), I have warrants,” he recounted to the cop.

The cop told the 24-year-old he would check his claim and if it was true he would be willing to make a deal. After making the confirmation, the officer arrested the 22-year-old who, after being read his Miranda rights still wanted to talk. The officer asked him if he would still go by the previous first name he had given, to which the suspect replied “No, it’s (name removed), my (expletive) name is (name removed). He then admitted he had lied about his first name because he didn’t want to go to jail.

The officer made good on his promise to the 24-year-old. Even though he knew the suspect had drugs on him, the officer said, he wouldn’t pursue the drug investigation further and would not arrest him – at least not this time.

On top of his outstanding warrants, the 22-year-old was later charged through investigation for making a false statement to a public servant.

Promises made, not kept

Although in August 2013 the owner had promised to clean things up, the situation did not change, according to police documents. Officers continued to respond to incidents, and following the August conversation four more people were arrested there for narcotics, domestic disturbances and outstanding warrants.

The legal situation escalated when the city sent the owners a letter warning them of impending abatement action if they did not immediately remedy the situation. The Sept. 4, 2013 letter claimed that since February 2012, the police had recorded 84 separate vehicles there, identified 64 individuals, 33 of whom were convicted felons. Between April 9, 2012 and July 20, 2013, 18 incidents had resulted in 22 arrests.

Still, nothing changed, according to the city. In the weeks following the warning letter, more arrests were made at the residence.

In November 2013, the city finally filed a complaint for abatement in King County Superior Court. The complaint described the home as a public nuisance that has caused “extensive police resources and manpower to be expended disproportionately in this neighborhood.”

The complaint also accused the owners, and their son, of being complicit in the criminal activity by not taking action, which had had “devastating and adverse impact on the surrounding neighbors and properties.”

“The city has no plain, adequate or speedy remedy at law and will suffer irreparable harm unless the defendants are restrained from continuing to use, maintain, or allow the Property to be used for the unlawful drug activities detailed,” the complaint states.

As evidence, the city included numerous affidavits by police officers who frequently responded to calls to the residence and exhibits containing police cases, some of which were previously published in part one of this series.

In a Dec. 13, 2013 response to the court, the owner’s son denied such activity was taking place. In the affirmative defense section of the document, he claimed that the majority of the arrests contained in the city’s exhibits were not actually made at the residence.

Despite the dozens of police documents and exhibits, the owner argued further that the “Plaintiff fails to show any documentation to support statements in this complaint.” He also wrote that although he had been arrested during the April 2013 SWAT raid, he had later been released and all charges had been ultimately dismissed.

The owner himself, however, never responded.

The complaint was approved by King County in January 2014. The order left the owners with two options: Get rid of the criminal activity or lose the home.

Suicide investigation

When the city came back for a final abatement in December 2014, one of pieces of evidence presented was a police response to the residence the month prior in which a 33-year-old man hanged himself by a rope.

On Nov. 11, police arrived at the residence after one of the occupants discovered the man hanging from a rope. The scene was not pleasant when they arrived. The body had been hanging there for so long, over 12 hours, that complete rigor mortis had set in and fire personnel who also arrived did not bother to attempt CPR. One of the occupants, 47-year-old female, found the deceased man after noticing her dog barking incessantly on the back porch. After finding the body, she screamed for help from her 55-year-old boyfriend and another one of the occupants. They tried to lift the man up, but were unable to untie the rope and eventually cut it with rusted shears found in one of the backyard sheds. They tried to perform CPR but found the body cold and icy, according to the police documents.

Later investigation found that the man was not actually an occupant at the home but an Everett resident who had been staying there for a brief time while gathering things for one of the residents, who was moving out. The current residents who found the body also told police the man had recently broken up with his girlfriend.

The second raid

On Dec. 18, the day before the second SWAT raid on the home, King County Superior Court judge granted the order of default against the owners for “failing to answer or defend in this action.”

The next day, after an investigation by the Eastside Narcotics Task Force (ENTF), the final raid took place. Assisted by the Kirkland Police and the North Sound Metro SWAT team, they entered the home. Among those found inside was the owner’s son, who was held and then released with no charges.

Apparently the condition of the house inside had not improved since the April 2013 raid. According to police narrative officers were told to use caution when entering certain rooms, as they had used needles hanging from the ceiling.

One of the men was arrested for trafficking in methamphetamine.

This time, the house was shut down. Kirkland Code Enforcement posted a “Do Not Occupy” sign on the front door, and the owner’s son was told he was not allowed back in without their permission.

For some of the neighbors, the day was one of celebration marked by drinking coffee together outside.

The day after the raid, an officer on patrol drove by the house to find the code enforcement signs torn down, along with the boards nailed against the gate. The officer went to the door in the back yard and knocked on it.

The owner’s son answered.

Didn’t he remember he wasn’t supposed to be there? the officer asked.

“Yeah,” the owner’s son replied. “Where am I supposed to go?”

The officer arrested him, then released him and told him to go to Tent City for the evening.

Ironically, the city’s final struggle to get an abatement on the house was not from the owner, but the bank, which demand a summary motion judgment. At the end of the month, the city filed a request to deny the bank’s summary motion judgment. According to the city, the house had been in default since 2010 and was slated to be sold by a trustee on March 13, 2015, but so far the sale had not gone through and in the meantime criminal activity had continued.

According to Assistant City Attorney Oskar Rey, the court granted the city a summary judgment on the matter on Jan. 9.

As the house’s fate is decided, its only occupants now are cats, though they are in good health and have sufficient food and water, according to a police incident report.