Kent man charged with assault after police standoff at apartment complex

A 67-year-old Kent man faces second-degree assault and felony harassment charges after he allegedly threatened two neighbors with a gun.

The incident led to a more than four-hour standoff Wednesday, Aug. 10 at the Olympic Skyline Apartments, 10125 SE 235th Pl., before the Valley SWAT team took the man into custody.

Jeffrey A. Martin is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 25 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Martin remained in custody Aug. 12 at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle with bail set at $250,000.

“The defendant threatened a stranger, then armed himself and threatened her father, then threatened to kill officers when they arrived to arrest him,” Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jennifer Phillips wrote in charging papers filed Aug. 12. “Following a lengthy standoff, officers found evidence of eight shots being fired inside the defendant’s apartment, endangering the safety of everyone else in or around his apartment. The defendant’s conduct can only be described as extremely dangerous.”

Kent Police responded at about 11:11 a.m. to 911 calls about a known aggressive, hostile neighbor who was in a verbal argument with others in the apartment parking lot, according to charging documents. He reportedly threatened to shoot a woman and her father.

Dispatch advised police there were numerous previous incidents regarding welfare checks involving Martin discharging a firearm around his apartment.

Officers heard a gunshot when they arrived at the apartments. Numerous officers surrounded the building. One officer could see Martin at an apartment window armed with a shotgun. Martin exited the apartment numerous times, once with another long gun, one time throwing a T-shirt and one time throwing a piece of paper.

Each time Martin left the apartment, he screamed at officers who gave him directions to come down with his hands up. Each time, Martin ran back inside the apartment, according to court papers.

A woman told police she was backing in to park her vehicle when Martin began to yell at her and threatened to blow her head off with a firearm, according to charging documents. The woman called her father who came outside and got in a verbal argument with Martin. Martin allegedly told the father he was going to blow his head off and threatened to kill him.

Martin also threatened to shoot officers and even called 911 multiple times. One time he stated he was a merchant Marine and is going to kill these (expletive). At one point, Martin exited the apartment and yelled at police to kill him.

A hostage negotiator tried to get Martin to come out of the apartment, but he refused to surrender. Officers used chemical agents to get him out of the apartment. A K-9 unit helped take Martin into custody at about 3:37 p.m.

After obtaining a search warrant, officers found a Winchester Model 50 12-gauge shotgun on the living room floor. They also found a Remington 12-gauge shotgun on top of Martin’s vehicle parked outside the apartment. A total of eight expended shotgun shells were located in the living room and kitchen. Holes from what appeared to be shots from the shotguns were found in the ceiling of the living room, kitchen, dining room and patio area.

King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson Casey McNerthney said prosecutors filed the case quickly.

“(We) rush filed this case immediately when we received it from Kent Police, and we argued that the defendant should remain in jail on $250,000 bail,” McNerthney said in an email. “A judge agreed.”