Police arrest smash-and-grab suspect outside damaged store

It isn’t often that police officers arrive at a crime scene to find the suspect sitting outside on a curb waiting for them, but that’s what happened in downtown Monroe last week.

Monroe Police Officer Paul Henderson discovered the suspect while responding to a report of an audible commercial alarm at Monroe’s 7 Star Smoke Shop around 2 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 5. Henderson arrived at the smoke shop to find the front door shattered, so he checked the store’s perimeter. He found a man sitting on a curb roughly 20 feet from the entrance to the store. 

“It seemed very odd to have someone sitting next to the very business that had just been broken into with an audible alarm. The subject saw me and just looked up but had no other reaction,” wrote Henderson in his probable cause statement. “I told him to show me his hands and he complied.”

Sgt. Paul Ryan arrived shortly thereafter, immediately recognizing the suspect as Monroe resident Makki Al-Aboudy. Al-Aboudy is the lead suspect in six cigarette store burglaries that occurred in September and October, in which he was alleged to have made off with numerous cartons of cigarettes after using a rock or some other heavy object to gain entry. He was arrested on Tuesday, Oct. 25, after Officer Jon Richardson observed him at the Shell gas station on U.S. 2 and North Lewis Street, allegedly crawling out of a freshly smashed window.

He attempted to flee on foot, but Officer Jason Southard and K9 Nuke were able to locate him nearby, according to court records. 

Ryan checked in with dispatch and learned that Al-Aboudy had been released from Snohomish County Jail on Monday, Jan. 1, according to documents. The temperature was 16 degrees at the time of the incident, and Al-Aboudy is known to be homeless, the report states.

As Henderson continued to examine the crime scene, he discovered a Husky hammer on the ground just in front of the entrance door, surrounded by glass shards. Richardson arrived on scene to assist, advising Henderson that he observed additional shards of glass directly adjacent to where Al-Aboudy sat on the curb. Additionally, small reflective particles on Al-Aboudy’s clothing were consistent with shattered pieces of glass, the report states.

Al-Aboudy told officers he didn’t know why the alarm was going off or how the door became shattered. No other individuals were located in the vicinity of the shop.

Southard and K9 Nuke were again deployed. Nuke engaged in a track that led from the door of the smoke shop straight to the place where Al-Aboudy had been discovered sitting, further linking him to the crime scene, according to the department.

Al-Aboudy was subsequently returned to Snohomish County Jail where he is being held on suspicion of burglary in the second degree.