Man assaulted security, wielding hatchet, pipe arrested after six-hour police standoff in Bremerton
BREMERTON WA March 12 2024 – A 42-year-old man wielding a hatchet and metal rod was arrested on Saturday morning after assaulting a security guard downtown and causing a six-hour standoff with Bremerton police and the regional SWAT team.
A Merchant Patrol Security Systems guard was making his rounds early Saturday morning when he came across a man leaning against a wall on the top floor of the parking garage at Fifth Street and Washington Avenue. The security guard told the man he was trespassing and needed to leave.
The suspect became confrontational and grabbed a metal pipe that he raised above his head, insisting he wouldn’t leave and that he was homeless, according to a probable cause statement for his arrest. The security guard fled to his vehicle and closed the door when the man swung his metal pipe into the windshield, cracking it, prompting the guard to call 911. The man appeared to begin to swing the hatchet, the security guard told Bremerton police, according to a report. The security guard sped off in his vehicle, striking the man with his driver’s side mirror in the process.
Police officers arrived on the scene and found the suspect sitting on the ledge of the top floor of the parking garage. He screamed obscenities and clanged the hatchet and metal pipe together while the officers at street level tried to negotiate him down for six hours. They were eventually joined by backup officers and the Kitsap County SWAT team.
The man periodically smoked fentanyl, nodding off and slumping over ten minutes later each time and then twitching back awake, said Captain Aaron Elton.
The man was known to the BPD who were familiar with his transience, drug use and apparent mental health concerns, Elton said. The man had previous encounters with law enforcement wielding knives, glass and hatchets, one in which he threatened suicide while trespassing in an empty parking garage where police had walked away.
Determining that the man couldn’t be reasoned with, law enforcement devised another plan and drove a vehicle to the top floor with officers armed with a shield, less than lethal weapons and a canine, Elton said. The suspect had dropped the metal pipe while nodding off but was still armed with a hatchet when the team arrived at the top and was still uncooperative.
The suspect eventually dropped the hatched down to the next level, along with a backpack he’d been carrying and “melted to his knees” with his hands on the guard rail, Elton said. The man was then arrested for first-degree assault, harassment and threat to kill with malicious mischief and was taken without physical conflict around 10 a.m. Sunday. He was taken to St. Michael Medical Center for treatment and was charged in Kitsap Superior Court on Monday.
