Deputies justified in fatally shooting JBLM airman, prosecutor decides

Pierce County sheriff’s deputies acted lawfully when they shot and killed an intoxicated and armed suspected carjacker earlier this year, the Prosecutor’s Office said Thursday.

Charles Michael Shands, a 33-year-old Air Force member at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, died April 14 after five deputies fired at him near his Frederickson home.

The deputies were identified at the time as Brent Tulloch and Nickolas Jankens, who had been with the department three years; Brad Crawford and Colby Edwards, who’d been Pierce County deputies for two years; and Sergio Sanchez, who joined the department in February 2016.

The Prosecutor’s Office said Thursday that Shands, who had cocaine and ethanol in his system, died from shots fired by Tulloch, Jankens, Crawford and Edwards.

According to prosecutors and investigators:

Shands got home from work about 5 a.m., after getting drinks with a coworker.

Instead of going inside, he started waving a gun in the street and threatening his neighbors near the 2500 block of 189th Street East, and ultimately took a vehicle at gunpoint.

Someone had called 911, and deputies arrived. They told Shands to get out of the vehicle but he sped off.

He ended up on a dead-end street, turned the vehicle to face deputies chasing him and accelerated toward one of their vehicles.

The deputies fired, Shands crashed the vehicle into an electrical box and it caught fire.

Shands at first refused to leave the burning wreckage. When he did the deputies told him to show his hands. Instead, he appeared to reach for his waistband, and deputies fired again.

He had 15 gunshot wounds, five of which could have been fatal, the Medical Examiner’s Office said.

This story was originally published August 3, 2017 at 5:40 PM with the headline "Deputies justified in fatally shooting JBLM airman, prosecutor decides."