Soap Lake man sentenced in vehicle theft standoff

SOAP LAKE — A Soap Lake man who was sentenced for stealing a vehicle and barricading himself inside of a shed claims he stole the vehicle because it was better than walking.

Brazen Penfield, 27, of Soap Lake, entered an Alford plea in Grant County Superior Court to second-degree possession of stolen property. In an Alford plea a defendant is not pleading guilty to a crime, but believes they would be found guilty if the case were to proceed to trial. Penfield was sentenced under a first-time offender waiver of a standard sentence and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, with credit for time served.

On May 11 the Soap Lake Police Department received from a call from a woman who advised her car had been stolen and she was following it. Soap Lake police were not able to initially find the vehicle, but the reporting party later said after losing sight of it she later found the car on Fourth Avenue Northeast in Soap Lake.

While en route, an officer was waved down by a male who said he had chased the driver of the car, Penfield, and the suspect ran into a mobile home in the 400 block of Third Avenue Southeast. The male, who owned the stolen vehicle, said when he found the car in the 400 block of Second Avenue Southeast Penfield was painting it. Penfield told the man he found the car and he got into the car, attempted to backup and struck the man’s pickup truck.

The owner of the mobile home advised she was sure nobody entered her home, but she said she hadn’t checked her attached shed. Another witness also came forward and said he saw a male dressed in all black run into the attached shed. The structure was surrounded by police and deputies and Penfield ultimately left the shed and was taken into custody. Police searched the stolen vehicle and recovered an empty spray paint can, knives, gloves and used latex gloves. “The back half of the car had been painted white with a paint brush over the blue. The front of the car had been spray painted a brighter blue than the car had been,” wrote an officer.

Police learned the women at the Third Avenue mobile home had put Penfield’s belongings, which he had removed from the stolen car, into the back of a nearby truck. In the bags police located mainly clothes, but they also found eight 22-caliber bullets, a voltmeter, a table top grinder and “a shank.” Penfield claimed he found the vehicle on a canal road between Soap Lake and Ephrata and he thought the car was abandoned, so he got in and drove off. He said the key was already in the ignition and he stole it because it was better than walking.