Tacoma man sentenced for running over homeless woman in tent at downtown encampment
A 29-year-old Tacoma man was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison for intentionally driving a van into a tent, trapping a homeless woman under the vehicle after he got into an altercation with her boyfriend.
Devon De’Vair Brown pleaded guilty last month in Pierce County Superior Court to vehicular assault and failure to remain at an injury accident for the July 28 attack at Tacoma Avenue South and South 7th Street.
The 28-year-old woman injured in the assault suffered a broken pelvis, broken ribs and a punctured lung, according to charging documents. Almost a week after the incident, the woman’s mother told police that her daughter was in a medically induced coma and couldn’t speak. Tacoma police said Friday the woman recovered from her injuries and had been released from the hospital.
The standard sentencing range for defendants tried in similar cases is a year to 14 months in prison. The maximum possible sentence he could have received is 10 years. Court records show Brown had no prior felony convictions.
According to court records, Tacoma Police Department officers were dispatched at about 4:27 a.m. the day of the incident for a report of a hit-and-run at a homeless encampment. Police found the victim trapped under a van. Fire department personnel responded to lift the vehicle off the woman and transport her to a hospital.
Records say an argument between Brown and the woman’s boyfriend led to the defendant deliberately driving at the tent where the couple had been staying. It’s unclear what the men were arguing about.
Witnesses told police the driver got in a van and went about a block down the road before turning around and accelerating toward the tent, which was in the grass next to a sidewalk. Brown ran off and left the van behind. According to the declaration for determination of probable cause, forensic investigators later found his fingerprints on the vehicle’s driver’s side door.
Brown was arrested Aug. 18. According to the probable cause document, the victim’s boyfriend had been searching for her assailant since the day she was hurt, and he called police when he found him.
