Bremerton police say a night of beer drinking between coworkers turned violent Saturday night, landing one man in the hospital with gunshot wounds and another facing felony assault charges.
Forty-six-year-old Kraig A. Burmaster has been charged with first-degree assault after a man who reported being a colleague of his at the Bremerton shipyard said he was repeatedly punched in the face, and then shot in the wrist and leg after drinking “three to four beers” with Burmaster at his house on Carr Boulevard in Bremerton, according to a certificate of probable cause filed in Kitsap County Monday.
Police say they received a call from Burmaster around 9:20 p.m. claiming “someone was in his vehicle,” which was parked in his driveway, according to the court filing. On arrival a Bremerton Police Department officer said he saw the alleged victim “laying on the ground” next to a silver Honda, bleeding from his leg, with blood on his face. The alleged victim “was heavily intoxicated and could not answer” when police asked what happened, the report states.
Officers looked inside the residence and saw blood on the floor, the filing states. Medics arrived and “one of the medics located a single shell casing laying on the ground” near where the alleged victim was found.
Inside the house, located on a manicured, suburban street on the outskirts of Bremerton, police say they found a black hunting rifle “equipped with a bipod and scope” on the kitchen table, and a glock handgun “sitting on a bed side table” near an empty handgun holster.
The alleged victim told police that Burmaster had invited him over to his house, and he brought a case of beer to share.
“After approximately three to four beers,” the filing states, the alleged victim said he was “attacked by Kraig, unprovoked,” and was punched several times in the face. He told police he lost a tooth.
He said he “does not recall” what happened next, and woke up when police arrived. When asked how he was shot, police said “he could not provide an explanation.”
According to the report:
“Kraig had showed [sic] him several firearms earlier in the evening, but [he] could not explain how he received a gunshot wound,” the statement reads.
The alleged victim told police that he and Burmaster worked together at the shipyard and had known each other for five years.
He was taken to Harrison Medical Center, where Emergency Room staff told police that he had received gunshot wounds to the left wrist and the left leg, and a bullet remained lodged in his leg. He would require surgery to remove the bullet, police said.
The alleged victim had a broken left forearm and “injuries to his face, which are consistent with being punched in the face,” an officer wrote.
Burmaster was arraigned in Superior Court on Monday, and is being held on $150,000 bail. Assault in the first degree is a class A felony punishable by up to life in prison.