A toddler was killed on Tribal land near Tacoma. More details learned
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- A 2-year-old boy was shot in the head and killed on Puyallup Tribal property.
- The Aug. 30 incident was ruled a homicide by the Medical Examiner’s Office.
- The boy’s grandmother wants answers and claims authorities have been tight-lipped.
Amory Goode Mitchell-Diaz Bradley was a quiet toddler, but adventurous, who loved to play with his older brother or by himself, according to the boy’s grandmother.
“He was his big brother’s muscle, which is funny,” Kristina Wiggins, whose son is Amory’s father, told The News Tribune.
In an interview, Wiggins grew emotional as she recalled a moment with her grandson at a birthday party in August.
“I was holding him, and he pointed to this rose bush,” she said. “So we walked over, and we smelled every single rose that had bloomed together, and I will never, never forget it. Never forget it.”
The following week, Amory was dead.
It has been five months since the 2-year-old boy, who Wiggins knew as “Rain,” died from a gunshot wound to his head on Puyallup Tribal property. Wiggins, whose son isn’t a Tribal member nor together with Amory’s mother, says she isn’t getting answers about what happened from Tribal police or the FBI. Her son, she said, was not there when the incident occurred.
Wiggins also strongly rejects that her grandson could have shot himself, which is what she said had been told to her by the boy’s mother’s side of the family. The News Tribune unsuccessfully tried this week to reach or interview family members on the mother’s side.
Amory was shot at night in a playground within an apartment complex, according to a death investigation report from the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was brought to the hospital by his mother, who said she left him in someone else’s care, at a friend’s residence, for roughly 12 minutes. The report, which Wiggins provided to The News Tribune, said that when the mother returned to her son, she found a friend outside running and holding him. The friend notified her that her son had been shot and needed to go to the hospital.
The firearm involved in the shooting was reported to not have been immediately found by law enforcement during an investigation, according to another report from the Medical Examiner’s Office also provided by Wiggins. It’s unclear whether it has since been located.
Three people were detained following the shooting and taken to Tribal jail, according to the Puyallup Tribal Police’s archived radio traffic, which is publicly available online. It’s unclear what happened to the detainees. A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson said this week that no one had been charged and that The News Tribune would be notified if or when that changed.
It’s worth noting that archived radio traffic indicates that the first call of a shot fired occurred shortly after 11 p.m., a half-hour later than when the Medical Examiner’s report noted that the incident took place. By 10 a.m. the next day, the FBI had cleared the scene, according to the radio traffic.
The Tribe and FBI have not provided any details to The News Tribune about the shooting, which occurred Aug. 30 in the 3500 block of East Grandview Avenue in Tacoma.
An FBI spokesperson would not confirm or deny this week that the agency is investigating the incident, citing Department of Justice policy. The Puyallup Tribal Council, which called Amory’s death a tragedy, previously said that Tribal Police immediately turned the case over to the FBI.
Amory’s manner of death was ruled a homicide by the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office. In plain terms, it’s a classification defined as a death caused by the actions of someone else regardless of intent.
“Homicide” is also a legally neutral classification, meaning it doesn’t make any statement about whether the death was the result of unlawful activity.
