Man with burning piece of wood torches police car with officer inside, Seattle cops say

Seattle police went looking for a man seen “brandishing a flaming piece of lumber” Thursday afternoon, and when they found him, he set a patrol car on fire while the officer was still inside, according to the Seattle Police Department.

The man was sighted at a city park, the department says, and at around 1:30 p.m. an officer in a patrol vehicle found and confronted him in a nearby alley.

“The guy walks up to the police car (and) either puts the flaming stick into the patrol car or breaks a window and puts it in,” Detective Patrick Michaud told The Seattle Times.

As his SUV burned, the officer shot at the man but missed, and he fled into a parking garage, Michaud told the Times.

Other officers nearby chased the man and took him down with a taser, police said. They said as they were arresting the man, fire “engulfed the entire patrol vehicle” outside.

The officer inside the vehicle suffered non-life-threatening burns and was taken to a hospital for treatment, police said.

A witness who lives in a tent at the nearby city park told The Seattle Times she heard multiple gunshots and watched the SUV burn from across the street.

“Then the cop car started to burn even more, and I thought, ‘That might actually blow up,’” she said.

This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Man with burning piece of wood torches police car with officer inside, Seattle cops say."