Bai Pai on NE 65th St burglarized, suspects flee to Lake City (UPDATES)

Just before 5 PM on Thursday, May 30, Seattle Police Department officers responded a restaurant burglary in Ravenna.

An officer at the scene of the burglary returns to his vehicle after interviewing a group of eyewitnesses.

Witnesses reported seeing two men (described to us by a female eyewitness as “meth heads”) fleeing the Thai restaurant Bai Pai (2316 NE 65th St), getting in a red car, and driving away. A third suspect, thought to be a female, was also involved in some capacity. (UPDATE: Only two suspects involved, police now say.)

Police pursued the car north into Lake City (via, in parts, 35th Ave NE and Sand Point Way NE) before calling off the chase as the vehicle drove on a sidewalk to continue the escape (per scanner).

View Bai Pai burglary and arrest location in a larger map

A short distance later, however, the occupants of the car had left the vehicle and were observed fleeing through yards. One male suspect was arrested near the 13000 block of 26th Avenue NE.

Scene near of the arrest of one of the suspects (at 25th Ave NE near 127th St NE). Photo courtesy Lake City Live.

At least one suspect is in custody at this time, says the Seattle Police Department’s Blotter page on the incident. Police may be looking for one or two more.

More information here when we have it.

UPDATE (7:27 PM): The Seattle Police Department’s Blotter is now reporting that a second suspect is in custody, arrested not far from the first. More:

Preliminary investigation indicates that two adult male suspects entered the back door of a restaurant and stole an employee’s backpack full of personal effects. Several employees chased the suspects, who ran to a stolen vehicle and made their escape (this event was reported to police as a robbery).

Also in the report: The getaway car was a stolen vehicle, both suspects are in their 20s and are the ONLY suspects, and no one was injured.

UPDATE (Friday, May 31): Our friends over at Lake City Live have more information about the pursuit and the capture of the suspects, including details on one of the arrests:

An alert neighbor that was watching the events unfold on the Seattle Police Department’s Twitter feed in an exchange with Ravenna Blog, happened to be on the phone with his wife when a bleeding man wandered into their yard. She told him about the man in their yard and the husband, who was not home, immediately told her to call the police when he realized via Twitter that the chase was in his neighborhood. The woman gave a description of the bleeding man to a dispatcher and then officers with guns drawn quickly apprehended the man who was at that point casually walking down the street on his cell phone.

Lake City Live also got a picture of the mark the stolen car made when the suspects tried to evade the police by driving on the sidewalk:

Damage on the Kaffeeklatsch building (12513 Lake City Way NE) shows where a car squeezed between the building and a fire hydrant as it was speeding from police. (Photo courtesy Lake City Live.)