Quick-thinking officers were able to distract and confront an armed and aggravated man who had fired several rounds while walking in the Highland Park neighborhood. Officers found him just as he walked through a group of young children. Though he initially fled, he soon complied with officers_ commands and was arrested. The children were not harmed. He made repeated statements about suicide, shooting other people and that next time he_d get the police to shoot him. He was sent to Harborview for involuntary commitment and mental evaluation.

A 14-year-old girl was taken to Harborview after she was found naked, intoxicated, and sick in a Highland Park home. A 24-year-old suspect, who had for a time barricaded himself in a bedroom with the victim, refused to leave. But when told police had been called, he fled the scene, nearly running over a witness. He remains at large. And though they were not there when officers arrived, nine other teens were allegedly present in the home, unsupervised, for the afternoon_s festivities. Officers found four paper bags commonly used to package liquor strewn around the living room and an empty bottle of tequila in the victim_s bedroom.

Early Tuesday morning, a couple was robbed at gunpoint as they walked in the alley behind the 6500 block of California SW. The suspects are four thin black males in their 20s. Two wore red bandanas over their face, and two wore blue bandanas. The victims were unharmed, but the woman_s glasses were knocked from her face and destroyed.

ehind In a store in the 9400 block of Delridge Way, a man armed with a brushed-steel handgun forced an employee to the floor before stealing a diamond tennis bracelet, a diamond ring, and a Rolex watch. $36,000 loss. The suspect is a black male in his 40s, about 5_7_ and 160 pounds. He had a pock-marked face. The Renton police report that they had a similar armed robbery at a pawnshop recently.

Thanks to some alert citizens, officers were able to apprehend two known burglars and auto thieves as they cased properties near 13th and SW Cloverdale on Monday afternoon.

Concerned that she had not heard from her landlord and that he had not cashed her rent check, a tenant drove to his home. When she noticed mail stuffed into the mailbox and there was no answer at the door, she called 911. Officers were able to get into the home through a window on the top floor, and they found the man_s body in bed. The medical examiners state that he had died within the past three weeks.

A man became angry after a car passed him on 35th SW, so sped up and passed it himself and threw a water bottle at the two people inside. As the cars pulled up to the light at 35th and Barton, the angry man got out of his car, argued, and hit the passenger in the other car twice in the face. The suspect, an Asian male in his 30s, drove off southbound in a dark-colored Ford Explorer with a California license plate.

At 14th and S. Henderson, a driver failed to use his turn signal, so an officer pulled him over for the violation. Turns out he was wanted on a no-bail escape warrant from the Department of Corrections, so he was immediately booked into King County Jail.

Burglaries by block: 8100 30th SW, 700 S. Portland, 1600 S. Graham, 8600 13th SW, 4100 21st SW,

Twenty-four car prowls and ten domestic violence incidents were reported in greater West Seattle last week.