Auburn Police arrested a 37-year-old man early Thursday morning March 30 on the heels of a road-rage collision and shooting near the 1700 block of A Street Southeast.
No one was hurt.
The King County Prosecutor has since charged Brandon Elias Coury of Federal Way with one count of drive-by shooting. He is being held in King County jail on $100,000 bail.
Drawing from the certification for determination of probable cause (CDPC) written by Auburn Police Officer Mark Walker and forwarded to the prosecutor’s office, here is a summation of what happened:
Officers had been conducting a traffic stop in the 1900 block of A Street Southeast at about 1:10 a.m. when they heard multiple gunshots. Believing the shots were aimed at them and that they were being ambushed, the officers took cover and radioed for assistance. Police from surrounding agencies responded.
While officers were investigating, a man drove up, said he had just been involved in a collision, and that during the incident the driver of the second vehicle had fired several shots at him and fled. At that point police understood the road-rage shooting was more than likely the source of the gunshots that they had at first believed were meant for them.
According to the police account, the victim provided a suspect vehicle description, and at about 1:55 a.m., a King County deputy, who had been in the area to assist, found at the Auburn Travel Lodge on 16th Street Northwest a 1997 Mazda pickup that matched the description.
While officers were detaining the two people they’d found inside the pickup, they saw a pistol inside. The victim identified the vehicle, and officers arrested Coury, booked him into the SCORE jail for investigation of first-degree assault, and impounded his vehicle pending a search warrant.
According to the CDPC, Coury told police that the victim had been the aggressor in the road-rage collision, and that he, Coury, had only been defending himself and his passenger. Though police recovered three bullets matching Coury’s pistol from the rear of the victim’s car, Coury continued to insist that he had shot not at the car but only into the ground to get the other guy to leave.
“Throughout the interview with Brandon,” Walker writes in the CDPC, “he would often say that he did not remember certain things or that the incident was ‘fuzzy.’ However, when pressed he could recall details. Brandon said he was driving and another vehicle behind him was driving like a ‘jackass’ and that he felt his life and that of his passenger was in danger. Brandon stated that he shot at the other vehicle because he thought he saw a handgun.”
Ultimately, according to the CDPC, Coury, angry that “every time I talk to a cop I go to jail,” demanded a lawyer and refused to speak further.
According to the CDPC, the victim offered a different account that was later borne out by evidence.
What the victim told police is that when the suspect’s vehicle turned onto A Street Southeast, it occupied the inside lane of traffic and was traveling under the posted speed limit. Further, the victim told police, when he tried to pass using the outside lane, the suspect vehicle accelerated to match his speed and intentionally prevented him from passing.
The victim told police the suspect’s vehicle then “flew around him,” merged into his lane and came to a stop, at which point he, the victim, tried to accelerate around the stopped truck but accidentally struck it on the left rear with his front right. The victim told police he drove away in fear, and “saw someone exit the driver’s seat and begin to fire a firearm at him,” according to the CDPC.
According to what Deputy Prosecutor Kelsey Kay Sherman told a Superior Court judge in arguing for bail, Coury’s record lists a felony conviction in 1998 for harassment, but that he recently had his right to possess a firearm restored. Also on his record are convictions for resisting arrest (2016) first-degree negligent driving (2005), hit and run unattended (2005), reckless driving (2005 and 2002), obstruction (2001), and third-degree theft (1999).
