3 Tacoma police officers who shot suspected gunman are identified
Three Tacoma police officers who fired at a shooting suspect after he began shooting at them have been identified.
Involved were Sgt. Brandon Mires, 37; police patrol specialist Sylvester Weaver, 61; and officer Bret Terwilliger, 37.
Mires has been with the department 12 years, Weaver is a 29-year department veteran and Terwilliger has worked in Tacoma for 13 years.
All three remain on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure after a police shooting.
The shooting occurred Sept. 2 in the 4000 block of South D Street after police responded to several 911 calls from residents who heard several gunshots, saw a truck fleeing the scene and spotted a gunman in a Seahawks jersey walking down the street.
Officers were interviewing witnesses when Antonio Bradley, 39, allegedly walked out of his house and fired three rounds at Mires, who was inside his patrol car.
Mires returned fire through his front windshield. Weaver and Terwilliger also shot at Bradley from where they were standing.
Bradley was shot once in the stomach.
As he was taken into custody, he apologized to police for shooting at them, according to court documents.
A Glock .9mm and ammunition was found inside the vehicle next to where Bradley was standing.
When Bradley was interviewed, he told detectives he did not remember firing at police or being shot because he had smoked a cigarette soaked in PCP.
“The defendant stated, ‘I must have had a bad trip,’” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
Bradley is also suspected of shooting a man in the neck prior to police arriving.
That man is still recovering in the hospital, but investigators said he is now in stable condition.
On Tuesday, Bradley pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree assault and one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and was ordered held on $1 million bail.
In the last five years, Terwilliger was involved in a November 2017 incident where he shot at a person trying to run officers down during a pursuit, according to department records.
The other two officers have not fired their guns in the last five years, records say.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 11:26 AM.
