A 28-year-old man accused of deliberately driving a van into a couple's tent at a Tacoma homeless encampment last month and seriously injuring a woman was arrested Thursday, according to court documents.
The victim's boyfriend had been searching for her assailant since the day she was struck and trapped under the vehicle, records say. On Thursday, he called police after finding the man, who had been identified as the driver through forensic evidence recovered at the scene. Officers responded and arrested the suspect.
Devon De'Vair Brown was charged in Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday with vehicular assault and failure to remain at an injury accident, court records show. He was arraigned the same day and pleas of not guilty were entered on his behalf.
Commissioner Philip Thornton set the defendant's bail at $1,000. According to court records, the defendant does not have any prior criminal convictions in Pierce County.
According to charging documents, an argument between the accused driver and the woman's boyfriend in the early hours of July 28 led to the defendant deliberately driving at the tent where the couple had been staying. Witnesses told police that the driver got in a van and went about a block down the road before turning around and accelerating toward the tent, which was set up in the grass next to a sidewalk.
Almost a week after the incident, the victim's mother told police her 28-year-old daughter was in a medically-induced coma and could not speak. According to the probable cause document, the victim's pelvis was broken in two spots, and she was suffering from a punctured lung and broken ribs.
Tacoma Police Department responded to the assault at about 4:27 a.m. at the corner of Tacoma Avenue South and South 7th Street, but the driver had left the van and ran from the scene, police said.
The incident left the woman trapped, records say. Tacoma Fire Department personnel lifted it off and transported her to a local hospital.
Witnesses and the woman's boyfriend knew the driver as "Smurf," prosecutors wrote in the charging documents. It's unclear how the driver and the victim's boyfriend knew one another, or what they were arguing about before the assault. According to the documents, investigators did not find any skid marks on the road, indicating that the driver did not brake "aggressively" before the collision.
Forensic investigators processed the van and found Brown's fingerprints on the vehicle's driver's side door, according to the probable cause document. Police created a photo montage that included a picture of the defendant, and the victim's boyfriend identified him as the driver.
The assault isn't the only time in recent months that drivers have been arrested for driving into roadside tents. In early July, police said a man driving a stolen car hit a tent in the grassy area by a sidewalk near the 1800 block of South 82nd Street, just off South Hosmer. Two people inside the tent were transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said. The driver was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence among other charges.
