Redmond police seek to ease parking lot stalker fears

Some Redmond Fred Meyer shoppers are getting spooked by F acebook posts about the store’s parking lot. They had to do with women being followed to their cars in the late afternoon or evening after coming out of the store.

One police report does have to do with these posts, but it’s actually not that recent.

“Back in February, what was alleged to have occurred did occur,” Redmond police Lt. Curtis Chambers said Tuesday. “A person did report that they were followed in the parking lot, and that person tried their car door before walking off.”

That person was never caught, and police say the incident remains the only reported one of its kind in that parking lot since then.

One Fred Meyer customer actually said she knows someone who was followed to her car that month.

“In February, we heard that our neighbor had been getting in her car and some person ran up and tried to take her purse,” Redmond resident June Griffin said.

Since Jan. 1, police say there have been 165 incidents reported in the Redmond Fred Meyer parking lot. A huge chunk of those involved traffic stops, hit-and-runs and traffic complaints. Eleven are categorized as suspicious or prowlers and 23 are theft reports.

The manager of the store said no one’s come up to him with complaints about safety in the parking lot, but did say they’re ramping up security efforts by increasing the number of times employees take trips around the parking lot to make sure it’s safe.

Redmond police have a possible explanation for why these posts are making the rounds months after the reported incident.

“This original post coul have been created not long after the original incident, and it takes time for a post such as this to be passed on to enough people that they’re eventually seen by enough people that are eventually passing it on to more and more,” Chambers said.