EDMONDS — The shotgun-toting assailant had the guy in a precarious spot.
The Edmonds man was on the toilet.
It was 4:20 a.m. and the suspect was armed and mad about his missing phone. He blamed the victim, accusing him of stealing it. He barged into the bathroom, leveled the shotgun at the man and demanded the phone back.
“I told him I didn’t have his broke (expletive) phone,” the man said to Edmonds police officers afterward.
Despite his position, he argued with the armed man, saying there was no reason for him to have the missing phone. The suspect insisted that the man wanted it for the contact list.
“This whole time he had his finger on the trigger of the gun and had it pointing at my feet,” the man told police.
Prosecutors earlier this week charged the suspect, 26, with second-degree assault. He was on community custody with the state Department of Corrections at the time of the alleged crime.
The man served a short stint behind bars last year for taking a car without the owner’s permission. He did a longer stretch in 2010 for having heroin and a stolen firearm. Police said the man is known for using and dealing drugs.
The victim told police that prior to the assault the defendant complained about losing his phone, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Adam Cornell wrote in charging papers. Both men went looking for it but came up empty-handed. They walked back home.
It wasn’t clear from court documents if the two men were roommates or friends.
The bathroom scene cooled off when the victim told the suspect he’d help him look for the phone again. The peace was short-lived. The suspect ordered the victim to empty his pockets while they were on the front porch.
The victim tried to persuade the defendant to put the .410-gauge shotgun away in his vehicle. He told police the man demanded the phone again, cocked the gun and pointed it at the victim’s head. The victim said he grabbed the barrel, lowering it to the ground.
The defendant retreated, leaving in his car. Police found the vehicle with ammunition in the trunk. It matched the shotgun the victim reported the suspect carrying.
The man was arrested a few days later.
The victim told police “he could tell right away that the shotgun was real, based on the size of the barrel and based on his own experience with guns,” Cornell wrote. “Finally, (the victim) shared that he was very scared during the confrontation with the defendant.”
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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