After eluding police on several occasions, man charged with 8 felonies

Search for man had previously caused schools to go into lockdown.

Police arrested a 30-year-old Port Orchard man wanted on seven felony charges and one misdemeanor after receiving a tip that he was sleeping in a truck in Silverdale.

Paul Matthew Dietz was arrested and charged with three counts of felony attempting to elude a police vehicle dating to December 18, and four other felonies including one from the Washington State Department of Corrections for an “escape from community custody” dated February 9, 2017.

An eighth felony count, for possession of stolen property, was added to the docket after police allegedly found Dietz with a stolen credit card during the arrest on Tuesday afternoon. Police also seized “multiple house type keys” with “tags from a lock box,” according to a sheriff’s office incident report.

Police say Dietz had successfully stymied officers’ attempts to arrest him on multiple occasions.

Charging documents state the arresting officer “recognized [Dietz’s] name from numerous previous alerts and talk about Dietz being the suspect in many eludes on a motorcycle.”

These pursuits “were terminated due to public safety concerns,” a Tuesday KCSO statement reads.

On September 26, two schools in the South Kitsap School District “went into lockdown,” according to the statement, while officers conducted a K-9 search for Dietz “in the Fircrest area of South Kitsap.”

Dietz was arrested and held in Kitsap County jail facing eight felony charges including trafficking in stolen property, identity theft and failure to appear in court, as well as one misdemeanor charge for driving under the influence.

A trial has been scheduled for November 26.