Another followup on an incident we covered over the weekend: A 93-year-old man arrested after allegedly threatening a local care center’s staff at gunpoint before leaving with his wife, described as a dementia patient who lived there. He was booked into jail late Friday night and released Sunday night. He had a court hearing in the meantime where a judge found probable cause to investigate him for assault. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office asked that he be referred for involuntary treatment; the judge released him on personal recognizance with no-contact orders for three people and for Quail Park of West Seattle in The Junction, where it happened. Prosecutors will decide whether to file charges. Here’s the narrative from police as included in the probable-cause documents.
I spoke with an employee at the care facility (who) stated that there has been an ongoing issue between (arrestee, his wife, staff).
(Employee) provided the following information. (The couple) both began residing at Quail Park in approximately January. (Husband) was deemed to be competent to care for himself and moved out shortly after. It was determined that (wife) was not able to care for herself due to a Dementia diagnosis. (Employee) described her as “pleasantly confused” and stated that she needed assistance with remembering to eat and other daily life tasks. He stated that (husband) was unable to assist her in these efforts. He stated that (wife)’s daughter had Power of Attorney for (wife) and decided to have (wife) remain at the facility.
According to (staff), (husband) has come to the facility on multiple prior occasions to visit with (wife) (at least two incidents were documented under SPD 2026-050250 and 2026-017194). They stated that during those visits (husband) was “verbally aggressive” and expressed his intent to remove (wife) from the facility. Staff enforced their rules for retaining (wife) and limiting (husband)’s contact with her. During one of those incidents, (husband) stated that he was going to come back with weapons and kill (employee).
Today, at approximately 1325 hours, (husband) was at the facility visiting with (wife). (husband), again, attempted to remove (wife) from the facility.
One staff member attempted to stop (husband). (husband) responded by pulling out a firearm and making multiple statements expressing his intent to leave with (wife). One of the statements was, “I’m going to get her out of here one way or another”. (Employee) stated that (husband) did not point the gun at her, but he waved it around and held it by his side. She said that she felt threatened by his actions and that she believed “he was going to shoot me.” (Staff) then ran outside and hid behind a car.
(Another staffer) stated that observed(husband) in an agitated state and observed him holding the firearm. She expressed significant fear and stated that she ducked down behind her desk and hid during the majority of the incident.
(Employee) stated that he observed (husband) remove a small black handgun from his right front pocket. He stated that (husband) expressed his intent to leave the facility with his wife and pointed the firearm directly at (employee)’s chest. He was within approximately fifteen feet of (employee) at that time, with no barriers in-between them. (husband) had made threats to harm (employee) in the past. (employee) stated that he believed (husband) was going to shoot him.
(husband) then left the facility with his wife. (wife) did not appear to be forcefully removed by (husband). She seemed to be in a confused state and made statements about wanting to go home.
(husband) was located and taken into custody by King County Sheriff’s Deputies while enroute to his residence. He was taken into custody without resistance. A small black Ruger handgun was located on his person. The firearm was loaded and two additional loaded magazines were recovered from him…
The husband has no criminal record; conditions of release also include that he not have deadly weapons – his lawyer says he has none besides the one allegedly used in this incident – and that he not drive.
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