PORT ANGELES — A 20-year-old Port Angeles man who has evaded arrest multiple times this summer was booked into the Clallam County jail Tuesday, a day after he taunted police in a live video on Facebook.
Mason H. Durham, who also uses the last name Rood, was arrested after leading police on a short foot pursuit near the Fine Arts Center in Port Angeles, where he abandoned a stolen vehicle, Deputy Chief Jason Viada said.
“He tried as hard as he could to get away and he was captured nevertheless,” Viada said.
Durham was booked on two unrelated felony warrants and for investigation of several new charges, including a felony elude related to Durham fleeing from the State Patrol last month and unlawful possession of a firearm related to an Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team (OPNET) investigation, Viada said.
He also was booked for investigation of possession of a stolen vehicle, Viada said.
Durham posted a live video of himself taunting law enforcement on Facebook on Monday night.
“Reporting live as your Washington’s number two most wanted,” Durham says at the start of the video. In the live video Durham is apparently in a vehicle traveling through downtown Port Angeles.
Durham has not been featured on Q13 Fox’s Washington’s Most Wanted.
In the video, posted at 10:29 p.m. Monday, Durham says he is “bored” of the “cat and mouse” game he was playing with police and that he should be “swarmed” by police.
By 1 p.m. Tuesday he was in custody.
Viada said he was aware of the video, but that it had nothing to do with Durham’s arrest.
“That would be a coincidence,” he said.
Plain-clothes officers saw Durham driving a stolen vehicle in Port Angeles and coordinated with OPNET, PAPD and U.S. Border Patrol to arrest Durham, according to Viada.
Durham abandoned the vehicle and fled into the woods. Law enforcement surrounded him and arrested him without incident, Viada said.
Last month he evaded arrest when a State Trooper attempted to pull him over for allegedly not wearing a seat belt, according to the State Patrol.
The chase ended when Durham fled into the woods behind a home on Larch Avenue, east of Port Angeles. OPNET and the State Patrol raided the home later that week.
Durham was arrested previously in connection with an armed confrontation over a stolen SUV on June 2, and bailed out of the Clallam County jail.
He initially evaded deputies but was arrested at a residence near Port Angeles a few days later.
________
Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsula dailynews.com.