The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office on Jan. 13 charged a 17-year-old Kent boy with first-degree assault in connection with the stabbing of 30-year-old Auburn man Jan. 9 near a Kent convenience store.
The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office decided to charge Michael Vincent Ford as an adult because he is charged with a serious violent crime, according to charging papers.
Ford is in custody at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center jail in Kent. Bail was set at $250,000. Ford is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 21 at the Regional Justice Center in Kent.
According to charging papers, prosecutors asked for the $250,000 bail because of Ford’s extensive criminal history, his claims to gang ties, the serious injury of an unarmed man, potential to commit a violent offense if free in the community and that it’s believe he is unlikely appear in court because he faces adult incarceration.
The teen’s prior convictions include taking a motor vehicle (in 2009), minor in possession of alcohol (2008), residential burglary (2007), criminal trespass (2006), possession of weapons capable of producing harm (2006), second-degree burglary (2005) and two convictions of third-degree theft (2005).
“This is a significant amount of criminal history for someone only 17 years old,” prosecutors wrote in the charging papers.
The Auburn man was stabbed three times in the shoulder, arm and back, said Kent Police Sgt. Bob Burwell in a phone interview Jan. 12. Burwell said paramedics transported the man to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for non-life threatening injuries and that he has since been released from the hospital.
The man told detectives he was in surgery for seven hours to repair the main artery in his left arm that had been severed because of the stab wound. He said he had partial numbness to his left index finger, left middle finger and left thumb. Doctors told him the surgery that took a portion of one of his other veins to repair the artery will leave about a 5-inch scar on his arm.
Police responded to a report of a stabbing at about 6:56 a.m. Jan 9 at a convenience store parking lot at the southwest corner of the intersection of West James Street and Washington Avenue North.
Ford, his 16-year-old girlfriend and the Auburn man were in attendance at an all-night party at a condominium about a block west of the convenience store. About 10 or so people were at the party.
Ford allegedly made disparaging remarks at the party and was asked to leave.
The man, who had a nephew at the party, walked to the store to get cigarettes when he reportedly saw Ford hit his girlfriend in the face in the store’s parking lot.
The man told Ford he couldn’t hit girls and tried to intervene, when he was stabbed.
The man went back to the party and asked to call 911 for help. Two of the partygoers knew Ford because they attend the same technical school.
Police tracked down Ford’s address and arrested him without incident the afternoon of Jan. 9 at his East Hill residence.
Ford told detectives that the Auburn man yelled at him and his girlfriend as they walked down the road to the store from the party. Ford claimed the man took a swing at him and hit him in the face.
Ford said he carried a small pocket knife with him during the incident but he had thrown it away somewhere near the store. He did not admit to stabbing the man.
The girlfriend told detectives that she did not see the Auburn man hit Ford. She said she saw Ford throw away a knife somewhere near the store. Detectives noted that the girl was not very cooperative or forthcoming with information during their interview with her.
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