Man who was shot at by Tumwater officer Wednesday night arrested on suspicion of assault
A Tumwater police officer fired four rounds into a pickup truck driven by a man who had threatened “suicide by cop” Wednesday evening, according to court documents.
The man is accused of driving erratically in the Tumwater Safeway store’s parking lot before driving at the officer, prompting the gunfire.
The man, who is 20 years old and lives in Gilroy, California, suffered only minor injuries, according to police, and court records state none of the officer’s rounds hit him. He was booked into Thurston County jail on suspicion of first-degree assault.
A prosecutor’s statement of probable cause filed in Thurston County Superior Court Thursday alleges that the man initially called 911 dispatch and said his family was being threatened by a cartel, and that he feared for his safety and the safety of others.
He wanted to speak with the FBI, according to the statement, because he didn’t trust police. He contacted the FBI, and an examiner relayed communications to dispatchers, saying he was “suicidal” and had a handgun and knife in the vehicle.
Later, he told detectives he had been “bluffing” that he had a gun, according to the statement, and thought saying he had one would “help get officers to shoot him.”
Officers arrived at the parking lot Wednesday evening about 6 p.m. with a goal to try “to talk him out of the suicide” and concerned about the weapons the man reportedly had in his possession, Tumwater police spokesperson Laura Wohl told The Olympian Wednesday night.
According to the prosecutor’s statement, the man was making what it characterizes as “paranoid statements” that were relayed to dispatch via the FBI.
“The FBI also noted that [name redacted] had mentioned ‘suicide by cop’ two times,” the statement reads.
Tumwater officers found the man in an early-2000s Toyota Tacoma pickup parked in the lot and tried to make contact with him before he started driving erratically, according to the statement. Most entrances to the lot were blocked by police vehicles.
A video shared with The Olympian by a witness who was inside the store shows a green pickup truck circling and weaving through the parking lot, followed by a police cruiser, with several other police vehicles and officers visible on foot at various points.
He drove laps around the parking lot and hit speeds estimated at 30-40 miles per hour, the statement reads, before a Thurston County Sheriff’s deputy laid out a spike strip that damaged the pickup’s passenger-side tires.
He continued to circle and, at one point, turned and “drove at” a Tumwater officer standing in the lot, the statement reads. As he drove near where the officer was standing, the officer fired four rounds into his pickup, according to the statement.
The video provided to The Olympian does not visually capture the moment shots were fired or immediately before.
One shopper, Tammi Bond, told The Olympian she was near the supermarket’s sliding glass doors during the incident Wednesday. She said the driver swerved and it “looked like he was going to hit one of the officers,” before the officer jumped out of the way, turned, and shot at the truck as it passed.
The man stopped the pickup and stayed there for about an hour, according to the prosecutor’s statement. Thurston County SWAT eventually detained him, and medics evaluated him at the scene.
He was found to have a “very minor injury” to the head, Wohl told The Olympian Wednesday. No officers were injured.
Booking records show Lacey Police arrested the man on suspicion of first-degree assault about 8:30 p.m.
In an interview, he allegedly told detectives he drove his pickup at the officer “in order to force the officer to shoot him” and that he thought his death would protect his family from the cartel.
The man told detectives had driven here in a day from Gilroy, California, and had stopped in Portland to ask for help but was denied. He meant to get to Washington, D.C., to contact the FBI, the statement reads, but ended up in Washington state instead.
According to Olympia Police Lt. Paul Lower, who is serving as spokesperson for the multi-agency investigation, officers cleared the scene about 3 or 4 a.m. Thursday.
The officer who shot his weapon will be on administrative leave while the investigation, led by Lacey Police Department, continues, according to Wohl.
The man was scheduled to appear in Thurston County Superior Court Thursday afternoon. The Olympian generally does not identify suspects by name until they have appeared in court.
Suicide hotline
If you or someone you know is struggling, The Crisis Clinic of Thurston and Mason Counties operates a confidential, anonymous crisis intervention hotline 24 hours a day, every day of the year at 360-586-2800.
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