Police find weapons, body armor, $10K in cash and badge in car driven by felon

SEATTLE — Police are trying to determine what a wanted felon arrested in north Seattle last week was doing with a car full of cash, guns, body armor and a fake badge, investigators said.

Officers said that on Jan. 7 they spotted a 48-year-old man wanted on a Department of Corrections burglary warrant driving around north Seattle, and pulled him over near Eighth Avenue and Northeast 70th Street.

Officers arrested the man and discovered he had a suspended license and was driving a car registered to someone else.

When police saw several backpacks and a snowboard in the back of the man’s car, officers contacted the car’s owner.

The owner told police the car was for sale and the man had been on a test drive.  The owner then gave officers permission to search the car.

Inside the car, police found two loaded handguns, more than $10,000 in cash, zip ties, a security badge and an armored vest emblazoned with the word, “sheriff,” a post from the Seattle Police Blotter said.

When the man was searched while he was being booked into the King County Jail, police found six grams of what was believed to be heroin and four grams of what was possibly methamphetamine hidden in his underwear, police said.

The man has not been linked to any Seattle-area cases of officer impersonation, but the investigation is continuing.

KIRO