PORT ANGELES — A Port Angeles man is expected to be arraigned this coming Friday on criminal charges for allegedly pointing a small loaded handgun at three boys outside his home last week.
Louis Foster Conant, 68, remained in the Clallam County jail Saturday on $7,500 bail after he was charged Friday with one count each of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful display of a weapon and harassment.
Police arrested Conant at his Campbell Avenue home Tuesday after getting a 9-1-1 call from an 11-year-old boy who told police that a white man with white hair and wearing a black hat, black shirt and camouflage shorts had pulled a gun on him.
Arrest report
An arrest report filed in Clallam County Superior Court gave this account:
The boy told police that he and two friends, 9 and 14, were playing in the 100 block of Eckard Avenue when the man came out of his home to the north.
The man, later identified by police as Conant, yelled at the boys and told them stop looking at his property, they said, and then came toward them and pulled out a handgun, later identified as a .45-caliber, two-barrel derringer pistol.
The boys said the muzzle of the gun was pointed toward them and Conant told them it was loaded.
“The suspect stated that he was a sniper in Vietnam and stated something to the effect of, ‘If I see this happen again, bad stuff could happen,’” Cpl. Josh Powless wrote in his arrest report.
The boys told police the man had been carrying the gun in a holster on his belt alongside a knife.
Police confirmed Conant lives at the Campbell Street home, is a Vietnam veteran and has a concealed weapons permit.
Conant agreed to come outside when police arrived and contacted him via phone that evening.
Police reported that he was wearing a derringer-style pistol and a large sheathed knife on his belt.
Conant told police he had seen one of the boys looking at his property before Tuesday evening. He believed the boys were looking at his “stuff” and thought that they had ill intentions.
Conant said he had yelled at the boys and told them he had been a sniper. He also said he told the boys he carried a gun and showed it to them, though he denied pointing the gun at them.
“When asked if he felt threatened by the juveniles at any time, Conant said no,” Powless wrote.
Police confirmed the gun was a black derringer-style pistol with a round in each of the two barrels.
