Sammamish Police are still searching for two men who eluded capture following a burglary and car chase on the Plateau on Jan. 30.

Two men were arrested in the chase, and police initially believed they were looking for two other men who eluded a search which included a helicopter with thermal night vision, and sniffer dogs.

Sammamish Police later revised that statement, believing that only one man had escaped. But in the days that followed, evidence gathered at the scene led them to revert to their original conclusion, that there were four men in the car that night and that two had escaped.

The two arrested men, a 19-year-old from Renton and a 23-year-old from Tukwila, were taken into custody and questioned in relation to the burglary in Sammamish earlier that evening. Police were unable to extract from the two men, believed to be from Eastern Europe, any information about the identities of their co-conspirators.

However Sammamish Police Detective Bill Albright told The Reporter this week that investigators were able to lift more than 40 sets of fingerprints from the inside of the vehicle abandoned after the chase, and were hoping to be able to visually identify the two men that eluded them, from footage from the pursuing police car’s dash cam. Det. Albright also said the men had taken video footage of themselves, possibly on the night of the incident in Sammamish, which was providing valuable evidence.

The two arrested men were released the following day, while police detectives gathered enough evidence to charge them. Det. Albright is confident that he will be able to bring charges against all four men involved in the incident.

He also believes the group is connected to an incident near Lake Tapps on Feb. 6, where a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a man who was attempting to leave a burglary scene.

According to police spokesperson Ed Troyer, deputies confronted three men in their 20s or 30s at a home where a woman had called 911 to report someone breaking into her garage.

The driver of the vehicle died at the scene, a second man was injured, and a third escaped on foot. Det. Albright believes the man who escaped near Lake Tapps may be one of the men that managed to get away in Sammamish.

Det. Albright said police were also questioning the registered owner of the Green Dodge Stratus abandoned during the chase in Sammamish. He is known to police, and believed to be a criminal associate of the four wanted men.