A Pierce County driver saw a fight, pulled over to help and took away the gun
A struggle for a gun that began with a pair of pineapple-patterned shoes ended after a Pierce County driver pulled over Saturday and intervened, court records allege.
Charging papers give this account of what happened:
A 23-year-old was at a convenience store near 112th Street East and Waller Road East when he saw another man wearing a pair of shoes — pineapple pattern Vans — that he believed were the same ones stolen from him several months ago.
The shoes were “one of a kind,” he later told a sheriff’s deputy.
He told the other man, who said he got the shoes from a friend, that he wanted them back.
Then the 23-year-old grabbed a gun from his vehicle.
“He knew he would end up in a fight,” the declaration for determination of probable cause said.
With the gun visible in his pocket, he told the other man to return the shoes.
Angrily, the other man obliged.
It was as they were about to “shake hands and go separate ways,” the 23-year-old told the sheriff’s deputy, that the other man lunged for the gun.
They struggled over the gun, along with the other man’s brother, who also was at the store.
The other man told the sheriff’s deputy that the fight started when the 23-year-old approached his car with the gun in his hand after he had returned the shoes and told the brothers to get out.
The other man said “he felt threatened and grabbed for the gun,” the probable cause statement said.
The brothers yelled for someone to call 911 while they tried to get the gun away from him.
A bystander driving by “saw what looked like two men beating up another man, so he stopped to help,” the probable cause statement said. “... he got all three men’s attention and got them to let go of the gun at the same time, at which point he took the gun.”
He told them to rest, then law enforcement arrived.
The 23-year-old pleaded not guilty at arraignment Monday to first-degree robbery, second-degree assault and drug possession.
Both the gun and the shoes were collected as evidence.
