Man accused of ‘terrorizing’ Home, WA charged with assault after fence-board attack
A man accused of “terrorizing” the Home area of the Key Peninsula who allegedly attacked another man with a fence board from his yard has been arrested and charged.
Prosecutors charged the 46-year-old with second-degree assault with a deadly weapon Friday.
The court ordered him to have a mental health evaluation to determine his competency to stand trial.
A sheriff’s deputy’s report cited in the charging papers said the agency gets dozens of calls a week about the defendant, who “is a registered sex offender that has been terrorizing the local community of Home.”
The deputy wrote the man threw a log at someone’s vehicle window as they drove by the same day as the alleged assault, and that he “walks into homeowners’ front doors, lies down in the road blocking traffic looking for confrontations with drivers, decides to park himself in homeowners’ yards and rearranges their landscaping.”
The attack happened the afternoon of July 10 when the victim heard his wife yelling from their backyard and found the defendant confronting her with a board from their fence, charging papers said.
When the man intervened and told the suspect to leave, the suspect allegedly swung the board and hit him in the forearm as the man tried to defend himself.
Then the suspect dropped the board and allegedly said: “I’m going to get my knife now.”
He grabbed a 4- or 5-inch blade from his backpack and turned to the man, charging papers said.
The victim “immediately began retreating and backing up, saying if he hadn’t backed up, he surely would have been cut or stabbed by the defendant,” the declaration for determination of probable cause said.
He called 911, and the attacker left on his bike.
When the sheriff’s deputy arrived he “walked around the house to the impeccably well-manicured backyard and observed broken fence boards and a single fence board with nails protruding from one end,” the probable cause statement said.
The victim had a cut on his hand and a swollen wrist, the deputy noted.
According to court records the defendant had a bench warrant at the time in connection to another case from last year, in which he’s accused of trying to take someone’s rowboat and paddle board and pulling a knife when someone tried to stop him.
He was booked into the Pierce County Jail Thursday.
This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 12:14 PM.
