Police Department

$25,000 worth of Property Recovered By SPD

Sgt. Terry Preuninger, PIO

Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 2:16 p.m.

The Spokane Police Department’s Targeted Crimes Unit recovers over $25,000 worth of stolen property from a one car garage taken in multiple burglaries from around the county.  The investigators were able to return numerous items to the victims because they had taken the time to apply identifying names and numbers to their property and / or had recorded the serial numbers of their property and could file those numbers with their police reports. 

See attached video by hitting control and clicking on the link below regarding the investigation.

https://vimeo.com/367091318

Detectives from the Targeted Crimes Unit developed information that 31-year-old Christopher Wayne Summa was a suspect in an occupied residential burglary where a 94-year-old female was sleeping in her bed while items were stolen from her bedside.  While looking into Summa TCU learned that he was being investigated by other agencies for property crimes from Airway Heights, Spokane County, Liberty Lake, and Kootenai County Idaho.

Detectives were able to connect Summa to several incidents due to outstanding citizen witnesses who saw something suspicious and reported the person and vehicle description to police.

SPD Detectives learned that Summa was living in the 3100 block of East Marshall in Spokane and possibly storing stolen property at that location.  On 100219, Targeted Crimes Detectives with the assistance of patrol, executed a search warrant at Summa’s residence.  Detectives recovered over $25,000 worth of stolen property from 11 different victims.  8 of those victims had not been connected to Summa until after their property was found during the warrant.

Detectives were able to identify stolen property from serial numbers, owner applied names, initials, phone numbers, or very detailed property descriptions from their police reports.  SPD encourages citizens to keep records or photographs of their property serial numbers and engrave or label property which greatly increases the chances of recovery.

Detectives recovered high end road bikes, golf clubs, speakers, hunting gear, and power tools.  Most of the property were tools stolen from construction site trailers, commercial burglaries, and vehicle prowlings.

The one car garage was stacked chest deep with property so there was a lot of items to process.  Many items that were believed to be stolen had to be left behind because owners could not be identified. 

Detectives from around the region were able to connect Summa to 19 different property crimes victims for incidents going back several months and 2 states.  Other agencies are handling the cases from their jurisdictions.  Spokane TCU Detectives concluded their investigation and will be submitting charges to the prosecutor’s office for Christopher Summa for multiple crimes related to Residential Burglary, 2^nd Degree Burglary, Felony Theft, and Felony possession of stolen property.

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