Charge: Angry at store's return policy, man threatens to kill

Ever get mad at a store when you couldn't return merchandise?

You could talk to the manager. Or you could go to the Better Business Bureau.

But prosecutors and police say a 28-year-old Bellevue man took a different course.

Travis C. Coleman began a campaign of vile language and harassing telephone calls, including a threat to kill a store manager and her 7-year-old son, court documents say.

He never did get the store to take back his cell phone. But he did get charged with felony telephone harassment.

Bellevue police officer Thomas J. Moriarty wrote in court documents that Coleman went to a radio shack store on that Eastside city on Halloween.

He gave one employee the frights. The employee said he couldn't take back the cell phone since Coleman bought it 33 days earlier and the 30-day return policy had expired.

Coleman got mad and told the employee to "go f--- yourself," Moriarty wrote. He made a fist and threatened to wait for the clerk and his manager to "take care of it personally."

The female manager called Coleman. He called her vile names and threatened to kill her son and her by ripping her head off, court documents say.

Moriarty said Coleman continued to call the store, telling the manager that she "deserved to die" and that "there's a place in hell for her."

The officer met with the manager. She was distraught and shaking, Moriarty said.

Moriarty called Coleman, who verbally abused the officer and said he would "take out our entire department," the officer wrote.

He asked Coleman to return to the store. But he refused. "I'm not coming down there, you will arrest me," Moriarty said Coleman said.

Prosecutors said in court documents that Coleman was convicted of telephone harassment in 2007, has pending charges of harassment against him from an incident in April and has had three warrants and six bookings in the county jail since 2004.