Man accused of running into Bonney Lake officer with stolen vehicle has been charged
A man accused of hitting a police officer with a vehicle in Bonney Lake on Dec. 15 has been charged with first-degree assault.
Kenneth Michael Whiteman, 24, pleaded not guilty at arraignment Tuesday. Superior Court Judge Susan Adams set bail at $500,000.
Investigators have described the incident as an officer-involved shooting, but they have not released many details.
Charging papers said when the suspect vehicle was found, it had one bullet hole in it, that a 9 mm casing was found at the scene and that the officer who was hit by the car uses a 9 mm handgun.
Whiteman was charged for hitting the officer with a stolen car, the Sheriff’s Department said, and the investigation into the shooting is ongoing.
The officer was placed on administrative leave, per procedure.
Charging papers gave this account of what happened:
A Bonney Lake officer ran the license plate of a Honda Civic in a grocery store parking lot in the 20900 block of state Route 410 and found that it had been reported stolen.
The driver left and was stopped nearby when another officer pulled in front of him.
That officer gave the driver commands at gunpoint.
When the officer who ran the license plate arrived: “He stated that he felt he needed to get his vest, so he went to the back driver’s side door on his truck and grabbed it and started putting it on,” the declaration for determination of probable cause said. “He said that while he was putting on his vest ... he heard the engine rev and the shot go off.”
Then he saw the other officer roll off the hood of the Honda.
Surveillance video investigators reviewed also showed the driver accelerate and hit the officer, “throwing him over the hood and rolling him to the opposite side of the car,” the probable cause statement said. “The vehicle then swerves toward where the officer is on the ground and speeds off east out of the view of the camera.”
The officer suffered abrasions on his elbows and one knee.
The probable cause statement said detectives spoke with one witness who “said that the vehicle hit the officer ‘pretty hard,’” and that the officer was “holding his chest” when he got up.
The witness said the officer told the driver to put his hands up, the driver didn’t, and: “Just shortly after that they stepped on the gas, the tires were spinning, and they hit the officer,” the probable cause statement said. “At the same time that the officer was being hit with the vehicle he fired his weapon.”
Investigators identified Whiteman as a suspect, found him outside a Tacoma hotel Monday and took him into custody without incident.
Pierce County prosecutors also charged Whiteman with three separate cases Tuesday.
One was a reckless burning charge, in connection to a burned-out vehicle reported and investigated by police in June.
The other two cases involved drug possession charges.
He had heroin and methamphetamine with him in August when he was stopped for driving a vehicle without a front license plate while talking on a cellphone, charging papers allege.
In November police allegedly found him with methamphetamine in a parked vehicle.
He also pleaded not guilty at arraignment in those matters.
This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 1:35 PM.
