Charges: Tacoma man shot into sleeping neighbor’s home. Bullets missed him by inches
A Tacoma man accused of shooting into his sleeping neighbor’s home missed hitting him by inches, court records allege.
The 38-year-old pleaded not guilty at arraignment in Pierce County Superior Court on Monday to three counts of first-degree assault and two counts of unlawful gun possession.
Charging papers give this account of what happened:
A woman and her two adult children woke up the morning of Nov. 25 to find bullet holes in their home in the 5000 block of South M. Street.
Some of the bullet holes were in the wall of one adult child’s bedroom. An officer noted that it looked like that person “missed being struck by gunfire by mere inches, at best,” the declaration for determination of probable cause said. “He indicated that it was quite possible one of the two bullets lodged in his mattress where he had been sleeping at the time.”
The family didn’t report having problems with anyone.
“... the three of them appeared quite shaken that someone had shot into their home,” the probable cause statement said.
The officer saw a fence between the victim’s home and a neighbor’s yard had nine bullet holes. He also saw Molotov cocktails near the fence in the neighbor’s yard, and casings and a live bullet on a wheelchair ramp to the neighbor’s home.
The officer asked the neighbor to come out, and, after putting on a shirt, he came to the door in a wheelchair.
The officer asked if he’d shot a gun that morning and that man allegedly said yes.
“The defendant then rapidly moved his hands from his wheels to his shirt,” the probable cause statement said. “He then lifted up his shirt with one hand while reaching towards two semi-automatic handguns that he had concealed on his lap underneath the shirt.”
The officer shouted at the suspect to stop and ordered him not to grab the guns.
He “explained to the defendant if he grabbed a gun he would be left with no choice but to shoot,” the probable cause statement said. “He also then told the defendant he was just investigating someone shooting a gun off and tried to lessen the significance.”
Ultimately the defendant raised his hands, and, when other officers arrived, he was taken into custody.
He allegedly told the officer he was only shooting in the air but “then admitted he was aiming to shoot people inside of the house where the victims lived,” the probable cause statement said.
They’d been harassing him, he told the officer.
The neighbors said they’d never had any sort of confrontation with him, and the suspect’s mother “believed his anger to be random and not as a result of any incidents with the neighbors,” the probable cause statement said.
She also said he’d asked her to buy alcohol the day before and that she didn’t want to because he gets “mad” when he drinks it.
The man’s criminal history makes it illegal for him to have firearms.
