PORT ANGELES — A 37-year-old Port Angeles man was charged Thursday with second-degree robbery after he allegedly broke into a vehicle, assaulted the car owner and resisted arrest.
Tyler S. Anderson was booked into the Clallam County jail after the early-morning incident on the 200 block of East Second Street in Port Angeles. He is being held on $5,000 bail.
City police were dispatched to a vehicle prowl on East Second Street at about 3 a.m. Thursday.
A man later identified as Anderson began to run eastbound after Cpl. Clay Rife ordered him to stop, police said.
An officer shoved Anderson from behind as he ran north on Race Street, causing him to fall on the grass near the sidewalk, according to the affidavit for probable cause.
“Anderson struggled while being detained but neither he nor the officers suffered any injuries,” Rife said in a news release.
“Anderson was positively identified by the victim.”
The alleged victim told police that he caught Anderson in the act of taking items from his vehicle.
When confronted by the victim, Anderson punched the man in the face and hit him in the head with a nylon bag, Rife said.
“The victim suffered a minor abrasion near his right eye and his eye glasses were broken as a result of the assault,” Rife said.
Clallam County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michele Devlin requested a $10,000 bail for Anderson at his initial court appearance Thursday.
“It is alleged that Mr. Anderson punched the victim and hit him in the head with a bag that he just took from the victim’s car after the victim caught him prowling in his car,” Devlin said in court.
Devlin said Anderson had 22 failure to appear warrants and felony convictions for attempting to elude and bail jumping.
“Those two felonies indicate that he does not comply with court orders or with orders of law enforcement,” Devlin said.
Defence attorney Harry Gasnick of Clallam Public Defender said the number of failure to appear warrants represented by the state was “somewhat misleading” because multiple warrants were issued on multiple cause numbers when he failed to appear in court seven times.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Brian Coughenour set bail at $5,000 and ordered Anderson to have no contact with the alleged victim.
“There appears to be a lot of missed court dates,” Coughenour said. “There was some violence against an individual.”
Anderson will be arraigned on the robbery charge Friday, Nov. 2.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.70 pound