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Sheriff: Man with machete arrested after bloody fight over stolen cell phone


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PARKLAND, Wash. - One man was arrested and two were injured after an argument over a stolen cell phone ended in a violent confrontation between unhappy customers with a machete and an unhappy seller with a gun.

The drama unfolded Sunday afternoon at the Brookside Garden Apartments on 101st Street East in Parkland, reports the Pierce County Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff's officials say deputies responded to the scene after receiving a 911 call from a man there reporting he had been stabbed.

When deputies arrived they contacted three men in the parking lot. One of the men was bleeding from his nose and had a severely swollen eye. The other two men were not injured.

One of the uninjured men was seated inside a vehicle, and deputies could see a large machete-style knife in a sheath inside the vehicle. Deputies ordered the man out of the vehicle and retrieved the knife.

The man with the swollen eye and bloody nose told the deputies that he had purchased a cell phone on Saturday through an online buy and sell from a guy who lived at the apartment complex, according to sheriff's officlals.

When the purchaser of the phone contacted the cell carrier, the company advised him that the phone was stolen. But when he contacted the seller to get his money back, they argued over text messages and he advised the seller he was coming to the apartment to get his money back. He brought along his brother and a friend to help him try to get his $40 back from the seller.

When the three men arrived at the seller’s apartment, they knocked on the door and argued with the seller through the door. The three men reported that the door suddenly opened and the seller pointed a gun at the men.

The men ran from the apartment and were reportedly chased by the seller and two or three other men into the parking lot, where they grabbed the purchaser and assaulted him, causing the swollen eye and bloody nose, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Deputies went to the apartment and contacted the seller and saw that his hand was wrapped in a towel soaked in blood. He told the deputies that three unknown men were knocking on doors and yelling.

The seller said he opened his door and was confronted by a man who yelled at him about a stolen cell phone. The seller claimed to know nothing about the cell phone, which he had reportedly sold to the men, and claimed he had never seen the men before.

He said one of the men became enraged and swung a machete at him, striking his hand and causing a deep cut. He told deputies that he did not want to provide any further details and refused to cooperate any further, sheriff's officials said.

Deputies again talked to the three men in the parking lot, and the man who had been inside the vehicle admitted that he had carried the machete to the door when he and his friends had gone to confront the seller. The man said if he did strike the man with the knife he did not remember it – but in the heat of the moment he may have swung it at somebody, according to sheriff's officials.

The other two men said they did not see him swing the knife at anyone, and that after the gun was pointed at them, they fled and had lost sight of the man with the knife.

The 35-year-old man with the knife provided deputies with a false name and date of birth, but he was later identified as the brother of the purchaser and was booked into the Pierce County Jail for investigation of first-degree assault, sheriff's officials said.

The machete and the cell phone were booked into evidence.

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