Barricaded man who prompted Tacoma standoff was unarmed and suicidal, police say

A man who barricaded himself in a Tacoma shed Tuesday after being shot at by a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy was unarmed and tried to kill himself before he was taken into custody, court records state.

Kelly Gruver Jr., 36, was charged Wednesday with trying to elude a pursuing police vehicle, obstructing a law enforcement officer and third-degree driving on a suspended license.

He was not arraigned because he was sick. He’s scheduled to be back in court Thursday.

The pursuit and ensuing SWAT standoff Tuesday put three Tacoma schools on lockdown and shut down a neighborhood for more than an hour.

Although a sheriff’s spokesman initially said Gruver exchanged gunfire with the deputy, it does not appear he was armed.

Nobody was hurt in the confrontation.

Charging papers give this account:

A deputy spotted an unlicensed Jeep Cherokee about 11 a.m. and tried to pull it over in the 6900 block of South Park Avenue.

The driver sped off, driving into oncoming traffic, and eventually crashed into a parked car in an alley in the 7600 block of South J Street. Gruver hopped out with a handgun and ran away.

Two minutes after he started the pursuit, the deputy reported to dispatchers that shots had been fired. The call brought law enforcement officers from at least three agencies to the scene.

After the incident, the deputy who fired the shots was placed on paid administrative leave, standard procedure when a deputy fires his on-duty weapon.

He has not been interviewed about what happened with Gruver but a Tacoma school resource officer filled in the blanks about how the shooting and standoff unfolded.

The officer was leaving Baker Middle School when he saw the deputy chasing the Jeep. He followed in case he was needed, keeping some distance behind them.

When he came to the area where the Jeep crashed, the officer said, he saw the deputy, gun in hand, near the front of his patrol car and giving Gruver commands. Within seconds, the deputy fired two shots toward Gruver, who ran into the shed.

Multiple officers surrounded the shed.

“After a brief standoff, two occupants of the shed came out with their hands up and informed officers that the defendant was in the shed attempting to overdose on drugs to kill himself or pretend that he had a gun in his hands so that the police would kill him,” according to records.

The standoff lasted just over an hour before a SWAT team used a “distraction device” and went into the shed and arrested Gruver.

He was checked out at a hospital before being booked into the Pierce County Jail.

This is not Gruver’s first run-in with the law.

He has three felony warrants out for his arrest, a suspended license and prior convictions for second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, first-degree possessing stolen property, unlawful possession of a stolen vehicle and unlawful solicitation to possess a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

This story was originally published October 3, 2018 at 2:28 PM.