Memorial Day weekend was a little too memborable — and quite frightening — for a group of campers threatened by an intoxicated man armed with a knife and an assault rifle. The man was arraigned on multiple charges.

Share story

So much for that relaxing Memorial Day weekend camping trip.

A “very intoxicated” Enumclaw man camping near Crystal Mountain took umbrage when he thought a married man in a nearby tent was having sex Sunday night with a woman who was not his wife, Pierce County prosecutors say.

So the man tried to stab the woman, threatened the people who intervened, then went into his tent and chambered a round into an AR-15 rifle he’d been showing off earlier in the day, prosecutors say. That caused the victims to flee the Silver Springs Campground.

The 29-year-old man was arraigned Tuesday in Pierce County Superior Court on charges of second-degree assault and unlawful handling of a weapon. He was released from the Pierce County Jail on Wednesday after posting his $7,500 bond.

According to charging documents:

A group of people was camping for the weekend at Silver Springs, which is on state Route 410.

The Enumclaw man had been drinking heavily throughout the day Sunday, showing off his AR-15 rifle in the process.

When everyone was getting ready for bed, he got upset that a woman was sharing a tent with a man who wasn’t married to her. The man started yelling and screaming at the couple for being adulterers.

The woman began packing up her campsite when the Enumclaw man came up behind her with a large knife and told her she needed to leave.

He stabbed at the woman multiple times, barely missing.

Other campers came to her aid, but he threatened them with the knife and told them to leave, too. He went into his tent and chambered a round into his rifle, and the others left.

The woman who’d initially drawn the man’s ire roused another woman who had been sleeping in her car and said, “Let’s get out of here because he is threatening to kill people. He has a gun and knife.”

The second woman went to the picnic table to retrieve her purse and cigarettes, and the man pushed her to the ground, the court records show.

The married man told sheriff’s deputies he was asleep when he was accused of being an adulterer and feared the Enumclaw man was going to fight him.

He left in a such a hurry when he heard the drunk man load his gun that he left his phone in his tent.

When he returned to retrieve the phone, the Enumclaw man pulled a knife on him, and the man backed away.

The alleged aggressor still was heavily intoxicated when sheriff’s deputies arrived to the campsite, and he kept repeating that he wouldn’t stand by while someone slept with a married man.