TACOMA — A man allegedly held his 1-year-old son hostage for several hours during a recent standoff with police in Lakewood.
The 22-year-old has pleaded not guilty at arraignment to second-degree kidnapping, harassment and fourth-degree assault.
His bail was set at $100,000.
Charging papers give this account of what happened:
The man came home intoxicated Jan. 3 and honked the horn of his vehicle. The baby’s mother came outside. He got mad at her, grabbed her hair, forced her into the car and bit her.
Then they went inside, and he punched her in the face multiple times. She left through a window when he left the room because she worried he was getting a knife.
No one answered when she ran to a neighbor’s home.
Then she saw the man with the baby outside. He had what looked like a revolver that he pointed at his own head and at the baby’s head.
A passerby called 911, and the man took the baby back inside.
Police arrived and the man held the baby hostage for several hours. They didn’t see a gun with him.
He told them: “As long as I have my son, I’m safe.”
His “mood changed continually from aggressive, threatening violence towards law enforcement, crying and stating he was a good father and would not hurt his son, to contemplating suicide by cop,” the declaration for determination of probable cause says.
Investigators didn’t find any firearms, but they did find a 9 mm ammunition box with 8 rounds, a dark colored toy gun in the drawer of the defendant’s bedroom desk and a large kitchen knife on the side of the bed, the probable cause statement says.
