A former Army Ranger who helps rehabilitate wounded soldiers with Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s Warrior Transition Battalion is accused of breaking into a man’s Tenino home Saturday night, kidnapping him, beating him and then abandoning him on a roadside.
The soldier, Sgt. Shannon Lee Bussey, and a second, unidentified man, are accused of kidnapping and beating the victim after the victim had been involved in a domestic dispute.
The two suspects are accused in court papers of holding the victim down on a bed in the home as they shouted, “you will not hurt her.”
Thurston County sheriff’s Sgt. Cheryl Stines said Monday that police reports indicate the beating victim’s wife called her adult children for help Saturday night because she was afraid and felt a domestic dispute with her husband might get physical.
The domestic dispute was over paying the rent, court papers state. The woman’s adult children could not go to the home themselves, so one of them called Bussey, a friend, according to court papers.
Bussey, 25, of Buckley, was ordered held at the Thurston County Jail during a court hearing Monday on suspicion of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree burglary and second-degree assault, with bail set at $25,000.
Stines said Monday that investigators were still trying to identify and apprehend a second man also accused of participating in the assault.
Bussey is assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s Warrior Transition Battalion, where he works in the adaptive sports program.
Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the area of Skookumchuck Road near Tenino about 10 p.m. Saturday night after receiving 911 calls that a man was staggering in the roadway, bleeding from the mouth and nose, with his arms duct-taped behind his back and his T-shirt pulled up over the top of his head, court paper state.
According to court papers:
The beating victim’s wife called her children Saturday evening. She said her husband “had become increasingly agitated and violent, hitting the walls with his hands, but had not struck her.” She suggested to her children that they come to the home and remove her husband. A family friend later arrived to remove the woman’s 13-year-old son.
The woman said that soon thereafter, two men entered the home, put her husband in a vehicle and drove away. She said she identified one of the men as Bussey. She said she did not call law enforcement, because she did not believe the men were going to hurt her husband, Stines said.
The woman’s son later told sheriff’s deputies that he had called his friend, Bussey, to check on his mother.
Sheriff’s deputies found blood in the street near the home and blood near the front door of the couple’s home on Steelhead Court in Tenino.
Bussey, who has no criminal history, was arrested early Sunday at JBLM.
Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465
jpawloski@theolympian.com
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