PORT ANGELES — A 27-year-old man is expected to be charged in Clallam County Superior Court on Tuesday after sheriff’s deputies say he stole a car from a Forks gas station, led a deputy and Olympic National Park ranger on a high-speed chase and used a Taser stun gun on a deputy Thursday afternoon.
Dale Langevin, reportedly from North Carolina, remained in the county jail Saturday on $50,000 bail after his first Superior Court appearance Friday.
John Troberg, chief deputy county prosecuting attorney, said he plans to file by Tuesday charges of third-degree assault and disarming a police officer.
Other charges may be added.
Troberg said he also plans to file a possession-of-stolen-vehicle charge but will have to wait until he receives written reports from Forks police.
A charge of felony eluding a law enforcement officer also is possible, Troberg said, though that would likely be handled in federal court since the chase along U.S. Highway 101 was in Olympic National Park and involved a park ranger.
“This is a very unpleasant case,” Troberg said.
Deputies gave this account of the incident:
Langevin got into a Nissan Versa, parked at the Forks Shell Station with the keys still in it, and drove off at about 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
A delivery man who saw Langevin get into the car went into the store to tell the car’s owner his car had been stolen.
The car owner and the store owner followed the stolen car east on U.S. Highway 101, reaching speeds of 85 mph.
Park Ranger Art Sandison spotted the car on Highway 101 in the park, driving east of the Fairholme General Store/campground at Lake Crescent.
When Sandison switched on his emergency lights and attempted to stop the car, Langevin made a U-turn in the middle of the road and began driving into oncoming traffic.
He swerved around a logging truck and forced several other vehicles off the road at Fairholme hill before a deputy, Gene Hoagland, caught up with him several minutes later.
Langevin eventually pulled over and got out of the car, but Hoagland said he refused all commands given to him. He finally gave up after the deputy threatened to use a Taser stun gun on him.
But while Sandison and Hoagland were moving to handcuff Langevin, he began resisting again and knocked Hoagland’s Taser from his hand.
Langevin picked up the Taser and fired it once, hitting Hoagland in the right buttock with one of the stun gun probes.
Hoagland wrote in his arrest report that he hit Langevin in the face with a “closed hand strike” to stop him from resisting and had to hit him two more times as Langevin began grabbing for Hoagland’s duty belt.
Sandison got control of Langevin’s wrist after using his stun gun and, with the help of Hoagland and another park ranger, restrained Langevin’s hands and feet.
Langevin told Hoagland later he saw the keys in the car and took it so he could drive home.
“[Langevin] told me he ‘really messed up’ and would rather have ‘been shot then [sic] go to jail,’” Hoagland wrote.
During Friday’s hearing, Langevin’s appointed defense attorney, Loren Oakley of the nonprofit Clallam Public Defender, told the court Friday that his client was visiting friends on the North Olympic Peninsula for a camping trip.
Langevin told the court he is originally from North Carolina and that his last full-time job was as a contractor in Florida last October.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
