LYNNWOOD — A man with a history of robbery, gun trafficking, cocaine dealing and other crimes has been arrested for investigation of beating a Lynnwood woman so severely she might be blinded.
The woman, 34, called police from an apartment on the 16600 block of 48th Avenue West around 1:20 a.m. Monday and “very quietly stated she needed help, gave her address, refused to answer questions and hung up,” according to Lynnwood police reports.
Officers arrived to find the lights on but the blinds closed. No one answered the door. So the police knocked on the door of a neighbor, who reported hearing about eight shrieks from the apartment downstairs, a few hours earlier.
At 1:42 a.m., the woman opened her door a crack and told police in a quivering voice that she didn’t need them anymore, a Lynnwood detective wrote in her report. One officer saw she had blood on her face.
The woman let in an ambulance crew. She was rushed to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She suffered skull fractures, a facial fracture, a broken nose and a possible arm fracture. The detective wrote she “may be or become blind from these injuries.”
Officers noticed signs of a break-in. The door frame was broken around the deadbolt, and pieces of the frame were scattered inside.
Eventually detectives heard the woman had fought with a boyfriend, 40, of Bellevue, at least twice that week, according to the police report. At least once it turned physical. She’d told a friend in a phone call that in a third incident, she opened her door to leave and get something to eat from Denny’s, when a man ran out from behind a dumpster and beat her.
By the time officers arrived, the assailant was gone.
Police learned her boyfriend had warrants out for his arrest for drive-by shooting, unlawful possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a firearm.
About two hours after the initial call, a police officer shined a light on the garbage cans about 60 feet east of a building in the complex and found a man. He reportedly told police he’d been drinking at a Chinese restaurant a few blocks away. He’d left to try to find a cousin’s home, and instead went to sleep behind some dumpsters for about three hours, he reported.
He said his name was Andre, from South Carolina, according to the report. One of the officers recognized him as the boyfriend, whose name is not Andre. He had a scrape about the size of a fingernail on his forehead and a long scratch above his left ear.
Police arrested him for investigation of domestic violence assault in the first degree, domestic violence burglary in the first degree and making a false statement to a public servant.
At the Lynnwood jail, he reportedly threatened to fight officers and had to be restrained in a chair.
Court records show the man served a sentence of more than four years in federal prison for unlawful transport of firearms, in a case where he opened fire outside of an Everett Avenue bar in April 2011. The man told police he was “drunk and mad,” and didn’t fire the gun at anyone in particular, according to federal court records. He was speaking to them while standing on top of a 9 mm Kel Tec pistol, hidden in his left boot. He reported he bought the gun from a gang member, and federal agents determined it had been trafficked from out of state.
The man had also been sentenced to three months in jail for robbery in 1998; 21 months in prison for first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in 2002; six months for forgery and cocaine possession in 2002; and 22 months for dealing cocaine in 2005.
He remained in jail Thursday. Everett District Court Judge Anthony Howard had set his bail at $500,000.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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