Bellevue man outwits 2 criminals, escapes in their getaway van

Looking back, Patrick Rosario realizes it probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.

Still, as it turned out, the burglars who tried to loot his Bellevue home got a surprise of their own as they began their escape: Rosario had made off with their getaway car.

As he puts it: "The good guys win for once."

As one of the thousands of Washington Mutual employees who were recently laid off, the former technology-program manager happened to be in the basement of his three-story home Tuesday afternoon, building a fiberglass part for his stylized car. His wife, Jamie, was at work; his 2-year-old son, Thomas, at day care.

Around 1:35 p.m., Rosario heard what he thought was a knock at the front door. Then — a loud noise. For a second, he thought it might be the Thursday housekeepers, but then he realized it was Tuesday.

"I thought, there's something going on here."

Rosario, 32, walked up the stairs, peered through a one-inch opening under the door into the main living area, and saw a pair of unfamiliar jeans. Then, a sound he did recognize — the serpentine slap of electric cords against hardwood, as one of his three flat-screen TVs was being hoisted away.

He already was dialing 911 as he hurried back down the stairs in soft, flat-soled Pumas, grabbing a hammer in case he was detected. He ran out the back door toward the front of the house.

The 911 dispatcher was on the phone as Rosario peeked around the corner, hiding behind a garbage can. That's when he noticed the exhaust sputtering out of the white Ford Windstar van parked out front.

Seeing no one, he quickly approached. The keys in the ignition, the humming engine, the unlocked driver's door: It was all too perfect.

Against the 911 dispatcher's advice, Rosario announced he was going to take it. What jury in the world was going to convict him, he thought?

He drove up a steep hill away from the house, figuring whoever was ransacking his home wouldn't be able to keep up on foot. He stopped a few blocks away in front of a friend's house and waited for police.

"I kept a pretty cool head," Rosario said. "You never know how you're going to react until you're in that situation."

Meanwhile, back at his home, a passing driver visiting an across-the-street neighbor saw the burglars exit the house. According to the detectives' report, "the males looked back ... and appeared startled."

"I wish I could have seen the look on their faces," Rosario said.

The two fled the house toward busy Southeast Newport Way, leaving a pile of flat-screen TVs by the door, along with Rosario's laptop, game consoles and his wife's jewelry box.

Forced-entry residential burglaries are all too common, according to King County Sheriff's Department spokesman John Urquhart, but they're rare in the area that includes Rosario's home, comprising only three of about 192 calls handled by the Sheriff's Department in the past month.

The suspects, still at large, are both described as approximately 20 years old, about 6 feet tall and 180 pounds. "We don't know who these guys are," Urquhart said.

Even as detectives took Rosario's report, the story apparently was making the rounds. Rosario said he received more than a few high-fives from other responding officers.

"Two pulled up, and they looked over at me and go, 'You stole their car — way to go, dude. That's awesome.' Another told me that I just made her month."

Urquhart wouldn't say whether Rosario's actions were advisable. "We expect responsible adults to make their own decisions," he said. "Clearly, this worked in this case, but in another case it might not have."

Rosario, too, realizes things could have turned out much differently. A day earlier and he'd have been napping with his young son. "I would have been trapped in my bedroom," he said.

That's why he's already replaced his broken door with a more secure one, loaded up on pepper spray and installed a new alarm system that he can only describe as "robust."

"I got lucky," Rosario said. "In retrospect, it was pretty stupid."

Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez@seattletimes.com