A 29-year-old Vancouver man stands accused of kidnapping a man at knifepoint and forcing him to a gas station to withdraw money from an ATM and buy cigarettes.
Andy James Morris appeared Thursday in Clark County Superior County on suspicion of first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping.
Court records show Judge Daniel Stahnke set Morris’ bail at $300,000.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Vancouver police officers were dispatched about 3:30 a.m. Saturday to Towne Pump gas station at 3515 E. Fourth Plain Blvd. The clerk there called 911 to report a customer had been robbed in the store.
By the time the officers arrived, the suspect had left the area. The clerk told police he initially thought the two men were together but decided to call for help when Morris demanded the victim buy more cigarettes at the register, according to the affidavit.
Police interviewed the victim, Dair Cortes Sandoval, who was “on the verge of crying and shaking,” the affidavit says.
Sandoval said that earlier that morning he was confronted in the street by two men near the 7400 block of Delaware Lane. He had just arrived home and parked his car nearby. One of the assailants, later identified as Morris, pulled out a knife and pointed it at Sandoval’s stomach, according to the affidavit.
Morris demanded Sandoval’s phone while the second man drove off in the vehicle that Sandoval had parked, which belonged to his roommate. Sandoval could not identify the second man, according to the affidavit.
Then, Morris made Sandoval walk to the gas station and instructed him to withdraw cash from the ATM, according to the affidavit. The withdrawal was unsuccessful so Morris forced the victim to buy cigarettes.
After determining Morris was the suspect, police believed he was likely in the Rose Village neighborhood, where they found him hiding in a shed on his mother’s property, according to the affidavit.
Morris denied kidnapping and robbing Sandoval. He said he asked Sandoval to buy some cigarettes and admitted he was wearing a “large survival knife” on his right hip, but he did not take it out of its sheath, the affidavit says.
Police said the knife was later retrieved from the home of an acquaintance of Morris’.
Morris will be arraigned Oct. 10, court records show.
