An armed, convicted felon with warrants out for his arrest found his desperate flight from police thrice thwarted by his baggy pants on June 5 at Game Farm Park.
And on June 19, the King County Prosecutor charged 31-year-old Lamont Afuvai of Auburn with one count of first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. Afuvai is in King County Jail on $25,000 bail.
In asking for the bail, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Dana Cashman informed the court that Afuvai “has significant criminal history, including an unlawful failure to appear, attempted bail jumping and … convictions (for violating domestic violence no-contact orders).
“He is not likely to appear in response to a summons and is likely to interfere with the administration of justice in light of his pattern of ignoring the orders of the court,” Cashman said.
Here, according to the Auburn Police Department’s Certification for Determination of Probable Cause, on which Cashman will build her case, is what happened.
At 12:30 p.m. June, 5, Auburn police detectives learned that a man named Lamont with outstanding warrants was at Game Farm Park, that he drove a Cadillac, was known to carry a firearm and had narcotics in his possession.
According to police, at about that time, a police detective at the park watched a man and a woman leave a Cadillac and walk into the park.
According to police, once the pair were out of view, the detective looked inside the car and spotted an empty handgun holster near the center console, and inside the holster he saw a glass pipe with a white residue lining the inside, a type of pipe known to the detective as one commonly used to smoke methamphetamine.
According to police, a Washington Department of Licensing photo of Lamont Afuvai positively identified him as the driver of the Cadillac. According to the police write-up, a Washington Crime Information Center (WACIC) check showed Afuvai to be a potentially armed, career criminal and a convicted felon, with his most recent convictions for first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and first-degree theft.
A short time later, according to police, while Afuvai and the same woman were returning to the Cadillac, a second detective pulled in front of the pair with emergency red and blue lights on. According to police, Afuva looked startled, and he began to run westbound through the parking lot.
According to the police write-up, as three detectives were pursuing Afuvai on foot, they yelled at him to stop, identified themselves as police and told him he was under arrest, but he kept going.
According to the police write-up, one of the detectives saw the man take a small handgun from his waistband in his right hand.
According to the police write-up, as Afuvai was running, his baggy pants fell down and he tripped, and the gun popped out of his hand and fell onto the parking lot. Afuvai tried to get up two times, but again his baggy pants stopped him, and police took him into custody and handcuffed him.
According to the police account, Afuvai at first denied having the gun, but later admitted that he had it because he was getting “shot at.” Police identified the weapon as a Taurus 9 mm handgun with one 9mm round in the chamber and five additional rounds in the magazine
To his name are seven prior felony convictions: first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, first -degree theft, third-degree assault, attempt to elude, second-degree robbery and second-degree assault.
