Police make bust in their own bathroom

Officers say they overheard a man on the phone trying to arrange a drug deal.

By Jackson Holtz, Herald Writer

EVERETT -- Note to drug dealers: The bathroom inside Everett Police Department headquarters isn't a good place to sell dope. It is a good place to get arrested for trying to.

Officers arrested an Everett man Wednesday morning after they overheard him on a cell phone, apparently trying to make a drug deal. The suspect, 24, was inside a bathroom stall at the police department at the time.

"When you walk in the door it says, 'Police,' with the big, blue letters," Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said.

Officers overheard the man talking on a cell phone about 8:30 a.m.

A police sergeant who was in the restroom happened to overhear the man placing the call. It appeared the man was desperately trying to arrange drug deals.

"In a bit of disbelief, the sergeant told his partner what he had heard," Goetz said.

Another officer also heard the phone conversation.

Police confronted the man as he left the bathroom. He reportedly thought he was at a probation office, not an Everett police station.

"He asked an officer if he was a probation officer," Goetz said.

The man is under state supervision for an attempted robbery conviction, police said.

The man allegedly admitted he was trying to make drug deals from the bathroom and surrendered a stash of Oxycodone to officers.

Bathroom arrests are common. Politicians and celebrities have been brought down in vice stings inside restrooms across the country.

But this is the first time anyone in the Everett Police Department has heard of someone using the police station bathroom in a drug deal, Goetz said.

"We've heard of other incidences that makes you wonder what somebody might be thinking but it's always interesting when it happens at your agency," Goetz said.

The man was arrested and booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of drug charges.

Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.