Prosecutors finish review of fatal shooting by deputies of man near Eatonville
.jpg)
Pierce County sheriff’s deputies were justified when they fatally shot a man following a head-on crash near Eatonville, the Prosecutor’s Office wrote the agency Thursday.
The letter said deputies killed Shawn Wilcox “after he initiated an armed encounter at a stranger’s residence where he implored the homeowner to kill him, after he fled from that residence and almost immediately caused a head-on collision with another vehicle in the oncoming traffic lane, and after deputies arrived at the collision scene where he told them he had a gun and pointed a handgun facsimile toward the deputies.”
The crash and fatal shooting happened Nov. 29, 2019 near the 38300 block of Mountain Highway East.
“The deputies involved believed that Mr. Wilcox intended to fire on them with a handgun,” prosecutors wrote. “We have concluded that the use of force by the deputies was justified and lawful.”
The letter gave this account of what happened:
A woman called 911 and reported that her husband was outside, that she heard gunshots and that there was a truck in her driveway.
“She was frantic and was not answering the 911 operator’s questions,” the letter said.
The call log said she “was yelling someone is shooting at them.”
She, her husband and their 12-year-old daughter had returned to their home in the 5200 block of 390th Street East and saw a truck they didn’t recognize turn into the driveway after them.
The husband tapped on the truck window and saw the driver, Wilcox, holding a knife.
Wilcox got out and yelled expletives at the husband, and when the husband said he had a gun, Wilcox told him to shoot him.
The husband fired shots into the ground, and Wilcox yelled, “Kill me, (expletive) kill me.”
The gun malfunctioned, and Wilcox raised the knife and came toward the husband, who ran to the house.
Then the husband’s adult son and his friend came out to help and tried to hit Wilcox with a piece of wood.
As Wilcox chased the husband, they fell down, and at some point Wilcox was on his knees, again yelling, “Kill me, kill me.”
The others yelled at him to leave, and Wilcox drove off. The husband then also called 911.
Soon after Wilcox crashed head-on with another truck, and Wilcox’s truck rolled over onto the passenger side.
Deputies Edwin Astorga, Jake Reed and Danielle Godsoe arrived and found it was the same truck from the other incident.
Astorga noted Wilcox was shirtless and mumbling inside the truck and thought he might be hurt.
When he asked, Wilcox mumbled something he couldn’t understand.
Astorga saw something in Wilcox’s hand and told him to show his hands three times.
“Mr. Wilcox then pulled up his right hand and brought his left hand to his right one as if he was going to grip a gun,” the letter said. “As Mr. Wilcox was bringing his hands up, Astorga noticed that he was using what appeared to be a shirt to cover whatever was in his hand. Immediately after Mr. Wilcox brought his hands together, he brought them up and pointed toward Astorga as if he was presenting a gun. As he did this, Astorga heard him yell something about having a gun.”
Deputies yelled commands and Wilcox didn’t comply.
“At one point Astorga yelled ‘Sheriff’s Department!’ and ‘Show me your hands, man!’ and then Mr. Wilcox extended both hands above his head, pointed the object in the air, and screamed, ‘I have a gun!’ so loudly that Reed heard him over the running engine of the overturned Nissan Frontier,” the letter said.
The deputies said at times Wilcox brought his head and torso out of the window of the overturned truck.
Before they fired, “Mr. Wilcox had both hands on the object wrapped in the black T-shirt and lowered it at the deputies as if it was a gun that he was going to fire,” the letter said. “The deputies, all fearing for their lives and the lives of the bystanders on scene, fired at Mr. Wilcox, who slumped down in the cab of the truck.”
Wilcox died at the scene.
“The cause of death was determined to be multiple gunshot wounds,” the letter said. “The toxicology report indicated that Mr. Wilcox ‘was intoxicated on both methamphetamine and THC at the time of death.’”
Investigators found the shirt was wrapped around a piece of plastic from the truck’s broken side mirror.
“The piece of plastic was approximately nine inches long and ‘L’ shaped,” the letter said, and a detective “noted that when wrapped in the T-shirt and presented in a manner consistent with a firearm, it was indistinguishable from a handgun.”
The detective found that Wilcox had been at the gun counter of a Spanaway store hours before the incident at the house.
“He was observed acting erratically at the gun counter in the store, where employees refused to sell him a firearm because he could not articulate what type of firearm he wanted to purchase,” the letter said. “He reportedly told a store employee he just needed ‘any kind of gun.’”
Then he went in and out of the store until police were called, and at one point he called 911 himself and said someone put drugs in the tailpipe of his truck and that employees at the store accused him of having drugs.
A deputy spoke with Wilcox, and he left.
In their analysis, prosecutors wrote the deputies who later shot Wilcox “first sought to de-escalate the situation by ordering Mr. Wilcox to show his hands and exit the vehicle. The deputies gave commands several times over a two-minute period, even after Mr. Wilcox presented what appeared to be a gun.”
The letter went on to say: “The deputies were faced with what appeared to be an imminent life-threatening situation when Mr. Wilcox, stating he had a gun, pointed an apparent handgun toward the officers. The deputies had no reasonable effective alternative other than using deadly force.”
