I-5 shootings suspect incompetent, must undergo treatment, judge orders

SEATTLE — A King County Superior Court judge on Wednesday ordered a man accused of randomly shooting people while driving on Interstate 5 last month to spend three months at an inpatient treatment facility after finding him incompetent.

Judge Johanna Bender ordered that Eric Jerome Perkins, 44, of Fircrest, Pierce County, be transferred from Seattle’s King County Correctional Facility, where he is being held on $1 million bail, to a state social and health services department facility within two weeks to be evaluated and treated, according to a court record filed Wednesday.

Bender previously ordered Perkins to undergo a competency evaluation on Sept. 19 after finding he showed “substantial delusional thinking,” court records show.

While being evaluated at Tacoma General Hospital after his Sept. 3 arrest in Pierce County, Perkins told Washington State Patrol troopers he was being followed and had chosen to “take matters of protecting himself into his own hands,” according to a probable cause affidavit. He also told troopers he fired at vehicles while driving from Tacoma to Everett to “get the people who were following him to ‘back off,’ “ the affidavit states.

King County prosecutors charged Perkins on Sept. 5 with five counts of first-degree assault in the Labor Day shootings that injured at least five people, including one person who was hospitalized after being shot in the neck. At least seven vehicles in King and Pierce counties were shot at, according to the State Patrol.

Perkins allegedly fired at people in cars in two waves at around 8:30 and 11 p.m., leaving some people with injuries to their torso, neck and legs, State Patrol said. A trooper looked into the Volvo Perkins was allegedly driving during the shootings and saw a handgun, magazine and loose ammunition inside the car, according to the affidavit.

Perkins’ next hearing is at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent on Jan. 8, court records show.