TACOMA — A man suspected of shooting at a semitruck driver after a fender bender on an Interstate 5 on-ramp was ordered held on $25,000 bail.
No one was injured in the shooting, which took place Thursday afternoon in Fife as the motorists went from Port of Tacoma Road to southbound I-5.
The 40-year-old Graham man pleaded not guilty Monday to first-degree assault and carrying a firearm with no permit.
He will be on electronic home monitoring if he makes bail.
Charging papers give this account:
The Graham man turned in front of the tractor-trailer in traffic, and the semi tapped the bumper of the Graham man’s Saturn. The truck driver said later he didn’t realize he’d hit anyone.
He heard loud noises and saw smoke coming from his windshield, so he debated pulling over, thinking his truck was malfunctioning. Then he saw the other driver lean out of his window.
Both drivers pulled over.
“The defendant immediately produced a handgun, at which point (the semi driver) put two and two together and realized he had just been shot at,” records say.
The Graham man was yelling “uncontrollably,” and the truck driver could not understand him, so he got back in his big rig and called 911.
Troopers and Fife police arrived to find multiple shell casings on the ground and several bullet holes in the tractor-trailer’s driver’s side door and windshield, “with one narrowly missing where (the driver) was seated,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
They took the Graham man into custody and recovered a pistol on his passenger seat.
A witness said the semitruck possibly touched the bumper of the other car, but it did not appear to be intentional.
When the witness asked the Graham man why he was firing a weapon on the freeway, he allegedly claimed he was shooting into the air.
The Graham man allegedly told troopers he fired all 15 rounds in his pistol then reloaded.
“The defendant stated that he thought the semi driver was purposely attempting to push him off the roadway and was laughing as he did so and that he could see the semi driver laughing,” records say.
Troopers noted the Graham man could not see the truck driver’s face due to the height of the big rig.
