Adjectival use or Adverbial use

Consider this sentence, please:

Seeing the police, the thief ran away.

In tjis sentence, the first part is a non-finite dependent clause and the second part is a finite independent clause.

Now, some say that the first part is adjectivally modifying the other part, whereas others say it's adverbially modifying the second part. What I think is that the first part is modifying the second part both adjectivally and adverbially at the same time.

Adjectival modification: Q: who saw the police? A: the thief.

Adverbial modification : Q: when did he run? A: after seeing the police. Or Q: why did he run? A: because he saw the police.

My question is: Can a non-finite dependent clause simultaneously perform two different actions on the same clause?

Solution 1:

In "Seeing the police, the thief ran away", Seeing the police is a free modifier. It acts adverbially on the whole clause "the thief ran away." See http://writingwithaesop.blogspot.com/2011/01/commas-and-free-modifiers.html