She saw a weird shadow in the store bathroom. Then she saw the man’s phone, Pierce prosecutors say

When the woman sat down to use the restroom at a Puyallup store Sunday morning she saw a weird shadow on the floor of the stall next door to her, like a silhouette of someone’s head.

She looked under the stall, she told police, and found a man holding his cellphone, its camera pointed where she was sitting. She tried to grab it, but the man slapped her hand and took off running before being arrested outside.

The 26-year-old Frederickson man was arraigned Monday in Pierce County Superior Court on charges of first-degree voyeurism and resisting arrest. Bail was set at $100,000.

According to charging documents:

The woman was at the store in the 300 block of 31st Avenue Southeast about 3:20 a.m. when she went to the restroom. She saw the looming shadow in the next stall, took a look and saw the man holding the cellphone.

She reached for the phone, but the man slapped her away and fled the restroom.

She left the restroom, too, yelling for someone to call 911 and get the manager. She described the man, and the checker knew his first name because he had just bought tobacco.

The woman was shaking as she gave a statement to police, and she said she did not know what photos of her might be on the man’s phone.

A police officer went through the store’s surveillance video with the manager and the woman, who was able to identify a man on the video as the person who recorded her. Another officer arrived in the manager’s office and watched the store’s live camera feeds as the man re-entered the store.

He left the store again through the same doors, and the two officers went outside to find him. A third officer arrived at the parking lot and found the man.

That officer ordered the man to the ground with his hands raised, but he wouldn’t take his hand from his pocket and kept walking toward the officer.

The man finally pulled his hand out of his pocket, dropping a condom onto the ground. He eventually got onto the ground but continued to struggle with the officers, who handcuffed him and put him into a patrol car.

Once the man was taken to the Pierce County Jail, he made sexual comments toward one of the arresting officers.

“They are only going to give me 10 months for this,” the man then told a fellow inmate. “All I will have when I get out is the impulses I get from sex offenders I’m locked up with. But now, the only impulse I have is to harm you and your family.”

The man then told the officer, “Enjoy what is left of your life. It is not much. I will see you when I get out.”

The man’s cellphone was seized as evidence. Prosecutors noted they might add further charges depending on the phone’s contents.