PORT ANGELES — A 40-year-old Port Angeles man was in the Clallam County jail Tuesday on $300,000 bail after he allegedly robbed a woman at gunpoint Monday night, led police on a high-speed chase and barricaded himself in his home for more than three hours before his arrest.
Arraignment set for Friday
Arthur Coulon Jr., who is unemployed and who moved to Port Angeles in November, will be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Friday on two charges of harassment-threats to kill and single charges of first-degree robbery and attempting to elude a pursuing police vehicle.
Authorities suspected Coulon was armed with a handgun when he was apprehended without incident at his home in the 800 block of Mount Pleasant Road, where he lived with his girlfriend, authorities said, but no handgun was found.
Coulon was drawn out of the house and arrested without incident following hours of talking via cellphone with a Sheriff’s Office negotiator, beginning at about 7 p.m.
No shots were fired during the standoff that drew more than a dozen officers, many dressed in body armor and wielding AR-15s.
They were told, “guy in custody, stand down,” over their radios at 10:15 p.m. after SWAT Team members had been called for assistance.
Coulon was booked without bail into the Clallam County jail at 12:39 a.m. Tuesday.
When arrested, Coulon was found to have a state Department of Corrections warrant for escape from community custody, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The warrant was related to a 2015 Snohomish County Superior Court sentence for possession of a controlled substance with intent to manufacture or deliver heroin and bail jumping under the alias Bobian James Brian Webster, a spokeswoman for the Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said.
The Sheriff’s Office amended its original report that the robbery took place a mile from Coulon’s home at 6:30 p.m. Monday at 1 Garling Road, where a robbery initially was reported in progress, according to Coulon’s probable cause statement.
The woman said Coulon had pointed a handgun at her while they sat in his car near the Mount Pleasant Road-U.S. Highway 101 intersection and demanded money, according to the probable cause statement.
Coulon took about $100 cash from her and fled in his vehicle, according to the probable cause statement.
She called 9-1-1 while she and another woman followed him to a gravel pit off Mount Pleasant Road near his residence shortly before 7 p.m. Monday, he said.
Coulon knew the woman he robbed and her mother, according to the probable cause statement.
One of the women said Coulon, driving a red Dodge Neon, was in a “stand-off” with them while Coulon allegedly pointed a gun at the vehicle, according to the probable cause statement authored by Deputy Nate Clark.
Clark was talking with the woman who allegedly had the gun pointed at her when a red Neon came down the hill on Mount Pleasant Road.
“That’s him,” she told Clark, according to the statement.
Coulon turned around and attempted to elude deputies, driving at up to 85 mph south on Mount Pleasant Road, across Draper Road, and north on Monroe Road to U.S. Highway 101, sometimes driving in the opposite lane.
Coulon sped eastbound on 101 to the Walmart exit at East Kolonel’s Way, turned around, drove west back to Mount Pleasant Road and back to his home, authorities said.
During the standoff, a dozen law enforcement vehicles from the Sheriff’s Office, Port Angeles Police Department and State Patrol were parked at the home and on Mount Pleasant Road at the intersection with Gravel Pit Road.
Coulon barricaded himself alone inside the home.
“We are working on a surrender plan,” Keegan said at the scene at about 8:30 p.m. Monday.
As Coulon exited the house almost two hours later, a man could be heard yelling for several minutes.
As Coulon was being taken into custody, his girlfriend approached him and asked him what happened, according to the probable cause statement.
“I tried to get us money so we could get out of here,” he responded.
While being booked, Coulon said he had a BB gun on his lap while the woman was in his car and that he fled authorities because of the DOC warrant, according to the statement.
He said he threw the gun out of the window at the Morse Creek curve area on Highway 101 and said he was “high on meth” at the time.
The gun was not located during a search of the area, according to the statement.
Vehicles were able to drive down Mount Pleasant Road during the standoff. At least three vehicles with flashing lights were stationed on the road during the incident.
The brown house where Coulon barricaded himself was behind a house that fronted Mount Pleasant Road.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
Arthur Coulon Jr., appears by video link before Clallam County Superior Court Judge Brent Basden, shown in inset, on Tuesday in Port Angeles. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
