Suspect in DV shooting accused of knocking out another woman's teeth 12 days before
Twelve days before a man was accused Tuesday of shooting his girlfriend in the face, he was accused of assaulting another woman in East Bremerton – knocking out some of her teeth – when she confronted him over his treatment of the girlfriend.
Sonny Lee Belgard Jr., 40, was arrested Wednesday night and booked into the Kitsap County Jail after prosecutors filed attempted second-degree murder charges against him for the shooting Tuesday.
Though Bremerton police wrote in reports they searched for Belgard immediately after the June 23 incident, they did not find him. After the shooting Tuesday, Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies began searching for Belgard and credited Bremerton police on social media for helping take him into custody.
At the time of the shooting, prosecutors had not filed charges against Belgard for the alleged assault. The case is being reviewed for charges, Prosecutor Chad Enright said Thursday. The office received the Bremerton police report on June 27.
Regardless of a charging decision for the alleged assault or a warrant, Enright said that between June 23 and July 5 officers had the authority to arrest Belgrade. Further, he noted an arrest warrant does not automatically result in a manhunt.
“We do not fund law enforcement in this county at a level where they would have extra deputies to actively seek out suspects with active arrest warrants,” Enright wrote in an email to the Kitsap Sun.
After the alleged assault on June 23, Belgard, the girlfriend and her 8-year-old daughter left the apartment on the 3500 block of Almira Drive, according to reports provided by Bremerton police.
A person at the scene told officers that Belgard might be at a nearby homeless encampment. When officers went to the camp shortly after midnight they located the girl, who had apparently been left there and was being watched by two men who did not know her.
“They advised they found (the girl) in the camp when she started to yell for her mother,” a Bremerton police officer wrote in reports. “Concerned for her safety, they escorted (the girl) to their site. (The girl) stated that she was asleep in the camp and when she woke up she was by herself which scared her.”
Officers took the girl into protective custody, bought her some macaroni and cheese because she could not say when she last ate, and contacted her father, with whom she usually lives.
On the morning of July 5, the girlfriend appeared at St. Michael Medical Center having been shot – deputies noted she had lost part of her nose and the bullet remained lodged in her face.
She identified Belgard as the person who shot her, saying he fired a small revolver during an argument at a residence on NE Quinault Drive in Central Kitsap, according to court documents.
In addition to the attempted second-degree murder charge for the shooting, prosecutors charged Belgard with first-degree assault and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. Belgard has multiple felony convictions, prohibiting him from possessing firearms, according to court records.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Suspect in DV shooting accused of knocking out another woman's teeth
