A good Samaritan walking to work at 2:47 a.m. notified Olympia Police of suspicious activity which turned out to be two men attempting to steal catalytic converters off of U-Haul trucks next to the 2 Mile House restaurant last month, police say.
Jake Summers, 34, of Yelm and Joseph Trahan, 35, of Tumwater, allegedly had driven in Trahan's red Ford Expedition to the Harrison Avenue NW location of Two Mile House and were in the middle of severing the catalytic converter from underneath a U-Haul truck when the good Samaritan called 911 on April 26.
Recordings of police interviews with both men are shown below this story.
Olympia Police arrived only three minutes later, blacked out their patrol car, and parked east of the 2 Mile House, walking on foot. Trahan’s vehicle started up and pulled away from the location, moving westbound. The officer got back in his vehicle, followed until backup arrived for an assist.
When pulled over, both Summers and Trahan acted confused and stated that they were not at the 2 Mile House.
In the back of Trahan’s Expedition, were 3 catalytic converters in the back, and observed that the vehicle had multiple power tools and saws in “plain view.
Back at the 2 Mile House, officers discovered fresh damage to a U-Haul truck that was missing its catalytic converter.
Summers told officers that he knew nothing about catalytic converters. During a search, inside Summer’s front right pocket of his pants were two Lenox brand saw blades. In his left front pants pocket was a headlamp with two AAA batteries.
Trahan told officers that Summers had called him, asking to be picked up at the 2 Mile House. Trahan said that two of the catalytic converters came from his property and didn’t know where the third one came from. Trahan denied cutting any catalytic converters off of a U-Haul.
One of the catalytic converters inside Trahan’s vehicle matched the one missing from the U-Haul truck. Upon further investigation, officers discovered that a second U-Haul truck had its catalytic converter partially cut off with the blade still sticking into the metal portion of the converter. This blade matched the same brand that officers removed from Summers’ right front pants pocket during their search.
Officers also requested taking both Trahan and Summers’ black clothing and shoes for evidence.
Summers’ chest tattoo also has a chest tattoo reading: “Everything Happens for a Reason.”
Both Summers and Trahan were arrested, booked into Olympia Jail on suspicion of theft.
This is a recording of the Olympia police interview with Jake Summers on April 26, 2021 related to the catalytic converters in Joseph Trahan's vehicle that morning.
This is a recording of the Olympia police interview with Joseph Trahan on April 26, 2021 related to the catalytic converters in Trahan's vehicle that morning.
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JasonS
Jolt News should consider linking their previous reports on the same individuals to their latest news reports. For instance, Jolt reported on Trahan just last month for his arrest "on suspicion 1) theft from a motor vehicle and 2) malicious mischief in the third degree", which appears to be quite relevant here. I also found a report on Summers' arrest from about 13 years ago which he references obliquely in the audio interview posted here, although of course that wasn't a Jolt News article.
While it's difficult to resist poking fun at the "Everything Happens For A Reason" tattoo, this is actually quite a sad life for these two men to be living at this point in their 30s, which in turns leads to a sad state of affairs for our community as a whole.
Wednesday, May 19, 2021 Report this