Port Angeles man charged with using gun to take bike

PORT ANGELES — Brandon Michael Markham was charged Tuesday with first-degree robbery and second-degree assault for allegedly pointing a 9 mm handgun at an acquaintance and making off with his bicycle Monday night.

Markham, 26, of Port Angeles will be arraigned on the felony counts Friday in Clallam County Superior Court.

Port Angeles police were tipped Monday night about a possible theft and robbery that occurred at a residence at 808 Whidby Ave.

A resident reported that Markham had taken a $500 mountain bike after Markham barged into his bedroom and pulled the semi-automatic pistol out of his backpack, saying, “Look at this,” according to the certification for probable cause.

Markham loaded the gun with hollow-point ammunition, put his finger on the trigger and “indiscriminately waved the gun about so that at times it was pointed at [the resident],” city police wrote in the arrest narrative.

Arrest narrative

Markham repeatedly asked the resident if he could borrow the mountain bike to meet a girl on C Street, police said.

Police said Markham grabbed the bicycle on his way out of the house and pointed the gun at the alleged victim for about 30 seconds.

A friend of the alleged victim who was present at the time corroborated the account, police said.

Markham, who had a $250 arrest warrant from Clallam County District Court, made no verbal threats while he pointed the gun at the alleged victim, court papers said.

Markham was spotted by police with a female and a bicycle outside Grandview Grocery about an hour after the reported robbery and theft.

Markham told police the alleged victim loaned him the bike and that he purchased the unregistered gun from “Tom the Barber” several days earlier.

When asked why his friends would claim that he pointed a gun at one of them, Markham told police: “I don’t know; maybe I’d better talk to a lawyer,” Officer Glenn Wood wrote in the arrest report.

Police obtained a search warrant for the bag containing the gun.

Markham is being held in the Clallam County jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

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