Police say he jumped into her car and told her to drive

A 26-year-old Burien man was arrested on suspicion of unlawful imprisonment early Wednesday after police say he jumped into a woman’s car in downtown Olympia and told her to drive.

The woman, 48, told police she left work about 2:45 a.m. and got into her car near Fourth Avenue East between Franklin and Washington streets. As she pulled away, the man jumped into the backseat.

“He said, ‘Take me somewhere safe, I’ve got to get out of here …’ She doesn’t know what to do, he’s already in the car and the car is in motion,” said Olympia police Lt. Paul Lower.

According to Lower, she told the man she needed gas and they stopped at a station on Trosper Road Southwest in Tumwater. When she went inside to pay, she told the clerk she had been abducted, that it happened in Olympia and gave her name before going back to her car.

The clerk, who later told police she saw someone in the backseat, got the car’s license plate and called Tumwater police, who contacted Olympia police.

Olympia police eventually got the woman on the phone about 4 a.m. She told them she stopped for gas again, this time at a grocery store in Centralia, and that the man had run off.

Centralia police found the suspect a few blocks away, according to Lower. He was booked into the Thurston County jail on an unlawful imprisonment charge, though Lower said police will ask prosecutors to consider a kidnapping charge.

The woman, who was not injured, told police she got the sense the man was trying to get away from something.

“We don’t have any crimes that happened near or around that time that we have a suspect outstanding. Maybe it was an unreported crime,” Lower said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Olympia Police Department at 360-753-8300.

This story was originally published February 27, 2019 at 2:13 PM.