By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Port Angeles police officers had a busy weekend with multiple arrests, starting Friday evening, when officers arrested a man that witnesses said was threatening patrons while holding a knife in a downtown tavern.
Police found 42-year-old Nicholas Johnson outside the tavern when they arrived, describing him as “very agitated”. Witnesses told police Johnson had been inside the tavern threatening patrons and accusing them of being members of ISIS. He was booked into the jail for felony harassment.
Things did not go well for a pair of would-be armed robbers on Saturday. Just before 7:00am officers responded to an attempted robbery in the 2400 block of West Highway 101. The intended victims were in a motorhome parked behind a business when a masked man and woman demanded cash from them.
Deputy Police Chief Jason Viada picks up the story from there.
“One of the intended victims was armed with a .22 magnum mini-revolver and told the would-be robber to drop his gun. When the suspect began to raise his gun, the intended victim shot the suspect once in the face. The suspects fled in their car. At about 7:02am, dispatch received notification of a patient in the emergency room with a gunshot wound to the mouth. The patient was flown to Harborview in Seattle.”
Soon after, a Sheriff’s Deputy located the suspect vehicle behind a hotel near First and Vine. The female suspect jumped out of a hotel room window and made run for it, but was quickly detained. 37-year-old Michelle Osborn was booked as an accomplice to the attempted robbery.
Good detective work led to the arrest on Sunday of a man wanted for armed robbery on two separate occasions in the last week. On Sunday, February 27, 30-year-old Wendell Wilkie Jr. of Neah Bay is suspected of robbing a convenience store near Front and Chambers just after midnight. The suspect was described as wearing a blue bandana over his face and armed with what appeared to be a handgun.
Then on Wednesday, March 2 just after noon a suspect wearing a blue bandana over his face entered the lobby of a hotel near Second and Laurel and demanded money from the till. The suspect fled on foot after learning that there was no cash in the till, and was driven away in a suspect vehicle. Later that day an officer spotted the suspect vehicle and a conversation with the driver led to probable cause to arrest Wilkie on Sunday and book him into jail.
All cases are being reviewed by the prosecutor.