He ran from police, then armed himself with a hammer and a screwdriver, court records say
A 45-year-old man who allegedly threatened to attack a New York judge’s office was arrested by Pierce County sheriff’s deputies after a chase, according to court records.
He pleaded not guilty Wednesday at arraignment to the charge of trying to elude police. Superior Court Commissioner Meagan Foley set bail at $25,000.
Charging papers give this account:
A deputy who knew the man had a felony warrant for his arrest from New York drove by the man’s Pierce County residence Tuesday and saw him get into a car and drive off.
The deputy pulled him over shortly before 9 a.m. at 168th Street East and 18th Avenue East in Spanaway. He told the man of the arrest warrant and asked him to get out of the car.
The man said that wasn’t true, refused to get out of the car and then drove off.
Deputies chased him, and quickly found him in a cloud of smoke nearby, where he’d crashed with another vehicle.
The man got out of his car, reached inside and turned around with a large framing hammer in one hand and a screwdriver in the other.
He ignored a deputy’s commands to drop the tools and another deputy shot him with a stungun when he got back into the car.
The man told one of the deputies he had mental health issues, and had stopped taking depression medications because his doctors kept changing the doses.
He also said he was struggling financially, because New York was taking 75 percent of his wages for child support.
He said he called the judge’s office to talk about that and the clerk said the payments wouldn’t be changed. The man said he replied: “What am I supposed to do? Come to New York and blow up the place and shoot everyone there?”
The man said he’d been “trying to do the right thing before he made those statements, but he ‘just snapped,’” the charging papers state.
