If the police want you in Renton, there’s a good chance your mug shot will show up on the Internet.
The Renton Police Department has launched a new crime-fighting tool on the city’s Web site, rentonwa.gov, called Renton’s Most Wanted.
It’s a takeoff on the phenomenon of America’s Most Wanted TV show and goes back to the days when the local sheriff posted “wanted posters” on the sides of saloons and in the post office.
Renton’s Most Wanted is also part of the city’s partnership with CrimeStoppers of Puget Sound,
the regional group that offers rewards leading to the filing of charges against a suspect.
Success depends on getting those mug shots in front of the public, then getting someone to call the police. Anyone who sees a suspect should call 911 and not attempt to detain the person.
“It is my belief that Renton’s Most Wanted Web site will help us close cases and catch local offenders,” said Mayor Denis Law. “This Web site is yet another way for us to communicate with our residents and provide them with information that empowers them to help us further reduce crime and improve neighborhood quality of life.”
Already on the city Web site there is a bright yellow “Arrested!” across the mug shot of William Adam Gray, for more than two years wanted in a fatal shooting outside a Renton tavern in 2006.
City officials can’t say for sure that Gray’s arrest in Federal Way on Jan. 26 was the result of the posting on Renton’s Most Wanted, which is still in its infancy. But the Police Department has been aggressively pursuing Gray, working with federal authorities and using social-networking sites, such as MySpace, to find him, according to Renton Police Chief Kevin Milosevich.
Gray also has been featured on KCPQ Q13 FOX TV’s Most Wanted.
Gray was arrested by a King County detective assigned to the U.S. Marshals Service Pacific Northwest Fugitive Apprehension Task Force.
Gray was charged in November 2006 in King County in the shooting death of a 19-year-old man and the wounding of another man outside Pounders Bar and Grill on Main Street about 2 a.m. on Nov. 5.
A $1 million bail on charges of second-degree murder was denied and Gray, 27, remains in jail at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, according to county online jail records. He was also charged with first-degree assault.
The Renton Police Department has always had its own internal “most-wanted list,” according to Milosevich. But the Internet allows the department to share that list more widely with the public, he said.
Charges range from murder to rape to domestic violence and driving under the influence.
Typically, those suspects on the Web site have been charged with a crime, but the city could use the site to post a photo of someone wanted for questioning in a crime, according to Milosevich.
