GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY, Wash. — A man armed with a loaded AK-47 went on a burglary spree in Elma on Tuesday morning.
Elma police said he broke into five homes before officers tracked him down.
"If they kicked my door in, they'd be looking down the barrel of a 9mm,” Leroy Winkler said.
Winkler isn't joking. The former police chief moved to Elma a few months ago, trying to escape city crime.
He never pictured a break-in spree happening on his quiet street.
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"Five burglaries going on at the same time. That's pretty bad,” he said.
Elma police Chief Susan Shultz said the first burglary call came in around 3 a.m. Tuesday on the 1700 block of West Main Street.
While officers were there, they got another burglary call on North 9th. Minutes later, another, then another, and another.
"It continued, it snowballed. We had one suspect going through Elma, from West Main all the way down to 4th Street,” Shultz said.
Two callers told police the suspect kicked down the front door and pointed a gun at them.
"We have someone doing home-invasion robberies and he's armed with an AK-47 and we know that it was loaded and he had one bullet in the chamber,” Shultz said.
Shultz said the fifth and final home hit was on the 300 block of South 4th Street. The suspect stole a homeowner's car keys at gunpoint.
Police caught him in the victim's driveway with a loaded gun inside the car.
"We find ourselves very lucky today that no one was hurt in this entire incident,” Shultz said.
Police said the suspect is Joseph Jacobson, 37, of Shelton.
They arrested him for five counts of burglary in the first degree, robbery first, assault first, assault third, and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Cox Media Group
