UPDATED at 11:25 a.m.
A Tacoma police officer shot and injured a young man after he allegedly rammed the officer’s patrol car with a stolen vehicle Sunday night.
The man was taken to a local hospital for treatment. He was expected to survive, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said today.
The incident occurred about 9:30 p.m. Sunday in the area of East 34th and East F streets.
A Tacoma police officer stopped a vehicle in the alleyway, then got out to talk to the driver, department spokesman Mark Best said. The reason for the stop wasn’t immediately known.
The driver put the vehicle in reverse and struck the officer’s patrol car.
The 31-year-old officer fired several shots at the vehicle, striking the driver. The officer was not injured.
Investigators learned the suspect’s vehicle had been reported stolen. It wasn’t immediately known whether the officer knew the car was stolen before the shooting or investigators discovered that afterward.
The officer, who has been with Tacoma police for two years, was placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure when an officer uses deadly force.
The shooting was under investigation.
We will update this post when more information becomes available.
Don’t take things that do not belong to you.
Does that include a life?
I wonder what would happen if I shot someone for running into my car.
it was stolen and they got out to taalk to him? um that doesnt sound right.
oh..so were allowed to shoot people for ramming our cars..??? i didnt know we could do that…
Good.
Only C3r741n p30po3 c4b r3ad 7h15
Don’t steal
@ TacomaRick, from the way it reads I get the impression that at the time of the stop it wasn’t known the car was stolen until later on.
I’m all for the police officer protecting his life. I live less than a block from where this happened and I heard at least two clips being fired in rapid sucsession. That’s alot of rounds going off in less than 30 seconds. I respect his profession and do not second guess how he felt at that moment but there are also kids in this neighborhood. Hopefully all those shots are in the vehicle. What would have been nice is if there had been a police leaison that could have told us that live on this block, what was going on. I had 4 patrol cars outside my house and didn’t know if there had been a murder, a gang driveby, or some nut still running around out there.
airborne0082: That kind of thing drove me nuts too and I remember my grandmother having a scanner but I found this works just as good and of course no up front cost of buying a piece of equipment. Online police scanner for Tacoma: http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?feedId=2995
I guess the insurance law is really strict here……you dont have insurance and you run into my car…well…ill just shoot your a_ _
Kiro News reported that the driver was shot after he rammed the patrol car and came close to hitting the officer . If you were walking up to a car, as an officer , to investigate something that led you to stop the car in the first place and it suddenly was put in reverse and rammed your car while you were outside of it you might think someone was trying to hit you and was trying to get away .
A car can and appears to have been used as a deadly weapon by a car thieve in this case .
It is also possible that the officer suspected or knew that the car was reported stolen as he approached it . You almost never get the whole story in news reports and especially not in the first report .
Let’s sit tight and see what info comes out . I’m pretty happy a car thieve was caught – they do so much damage to our community by stealing peoples property and making their lives miserable.
I wondered what all that noise was. I am so used to the noise of sirens around here I don’t bother to check anymore.
with all the crime, gang activity out there a police officer has to be very careful. When a police officer wants you to stop, you don’t RAM his police car.
As the article appears to make a point to fall short of saying the cop actually established contact with the gentleman in question, is it not reasonable to assume that the cop was behind the guy’s car when he threw it into reverse? I know cop-hate is the topic de jour, but anyone, cop or not has the right to defend him/herself when they feel their life is in danger.
What part of “Thou shall not steal”… do some of you don’t understand??? This time the thief was lucky….
Being the victim of two stolen vehicles, one recovered one not. I’m all for shooting car thief’s. May not be right but it’s just the way I feel. Maybe if they new they could be shot they would not steal a car. Same for home burglary’s, if you could shoot them for trying to steal your stuff then they might think twice before doing it.
OK this is BS. I live within ear shot of this whole thing. I heard at least 9 gunshots. I did NOT hear any car being hit. I SAW the police officers vehicle against the back end of the Honda that was cornered into a garage. I’m all for stopping a thief but I do not think it took 9 to 10 shots to stop someone who was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have children in my house less then 50 feet from where this took place, I’m more afraid of the police then the criminals. I’m not buying the story of the guy ramming the police vehicle I’m positive I would have heard that given I can hear someone going through my trash can at any given time. Seems to me that the Police Officer may have over reacted. Just MY opinion. Thief or not this is someones son.
Auto theft will drop in east Tacoma as a result of this brave officer. I call this good policing.
It’s too bad people feel they know how a police officer feels when he’s confronted by someone whose done something illegal and that person resists causing the officer to either protect him/herself if not the neighborhood. First off, shooting someone isn’t like TV, very few officers are sharpshooters, and if you’ve ever fired a gun you would know that with each shot there’s an echo, and depending on where you’re hearing it from will depend on what you hear. One thing to remember that when you hear shots, don’t go to your window wondering where they’re coming from, take cover and protect yourself, and your loved ones. Officers don’t like using deadly force but I feel if they feel their lives are in danger they have the RIGHT to protect themselves with whatever force helps them achieve that.
concernedmom — I’m not afraid of the police. Not one bit. Of course, I don’t do drugs or steal, so…
I do not break the law either. I know that the kid broke the law. What I am questioning is was the force that was used really necessary? I did not hear a thing other then shots fired in rapid concession. Jut seems like if the guy RAMMED his car into the police car I would have heard that.
What a bunch of armchair quarterbacks…If you didn’t see it, your version of events is invalid…..Get it? (concernedmom815. justin, justridn etc.)
sorry sucession
concernedmom815…I want to thank you profusely for your point of view here. I have been dear friends of this family for a long time. What this “kid” did was wrong, without question. Yet, I too, and the entire family feel that the amount of force here is suspect at best. Punishment is supposed to fit the crime. He’s fighting for his life as I type this. The family is praying for people with information, who heard or saw what happened to reach out because we’ve been left in the dark the entire day. We do know that he did nothing, i.e., brandish a weapon, threaten, etc…to warrant this hailstorm of bullets shot at him. Never got out of the car. People tend to so rapidly trust the police as an authority, yet there are numerous examples of our Police force doing things outside of established guidelines.
pacmattler, please keep in mind that a car is a weapon — and you state that he never got out of the car (a weapon). I do feel for him and his family, and also for the police officer who had to make a split-second decision when he believed his safety, and that of the public, was in danger.
Please keep in mind that this was a stolen car. The “He was a good boy” defense just doesn’t work here.
And he’s expected to survive — so “fighting for his life” is hyperbole. I do hope he survives. I also hope that he chooses a law-abiding path. And I am glad that the police officer was able to go home to his family after this, alive, not in a coffin.
Justice was served. Just too bad he survived. Now the taxpayers will foot the bill for his hospital and incarceration. Sigh. No wonder we have a $2 billion deficit. Yeesh! Obviously his family failed to teach him “thou shall not steal”. Instead of the family praying for information, maybe they should be praying for forgiveness since they failed to teach the child some important lessons of life. Just a thought.
pacmattler: not sure how to reach you or the family and I am not putting my personal info on here
there were 5 shots fired in rapid sucession, a 3 to 5 second pause, then 7 more shots fired in rapid sucession. i too, didn’t hear a car crashing, or an officers yell at the suspect, but i was a good distance away. i drove by the area, hearing the officer asking the person in a little honda car if he could hear them. police came from all directions and were on scene in less than a minute and a half, at least 20 cop cars.
a lot of good civil discussion and points of view. Thanks to all the folks that live nearby helping to add info and facts to this puzzle . Concerned Mom: I get your point about kids , gunshots near y can be very scary – head for the bathtub ! This “kid” being somebody’s child ; madam , that is really no excuse for stealing other good peoples stuff , cars etc . I hope he turns his life around before it gets worse .
I also get the fact that frequently many car thieves in this town steal many decent citzens vehicles before they end up in jail. I’m thinkin that if your car had been stolen by this “son” you might just feel a little different about him being caught. I regret he was shot but I sure don’t know all the facts of what prompted that.
Let’s just say I’m not gonna second guess the officer who is out there helping protect YOUR neighborhood, all day and all night , from things and people you don’t even know about. Things you don’t want to know about . Since there were so many officers on the scene so quickly and that shots were fired I’m sure the facts will come out soon . I will just share one last thing . If you think you are going to get killed or someone else is in danger you keep shooting till you are sure whatever was threatening you can’t do it anymore . Let’s just give em some time to sort it all out . Thanks everyone for making this a good honest discussion .
pacmattler;
I can not figure out how to address people privately and I am not sure if you can on here but if anyone from this guys family wants to discuss this please email me at the following email.
rubyred@hotmail.com
C…Mom
concernedmom815…
thank you once again…my email is pacmatt@mac.com…I appreciate you and the others who have reached out to give us their account of what happened. We look forward to hearing the facts instead of the drivel of wild speculation from those who don’t have any clue as to what they’re talking about. I was always under the impression that we lived in a country of “innocent until proven guilty”; yet so many of these comments are indicative that he’s guilty and justice was served by him being paralyzed based on the story of this police officer without proof of what actually occurred. Again, thanks!
The family is the problem here. Instead of saying that this was the result of the suspects own personal decisions, they have to blame the police officer and make excuses for the perp. He is a good boy. Good boys do not steal from people. Good boys do not try and ram police officer or try to run from the police.
I bet he is a drug addict that was getting to change his life the next day if the police did not shoot him.
In all reality, even if he reversed his vehicle, doesn’t mean he was trying to hit the cop. When you really think about it, a normal person would have moved out of the way, don’t you think? In my opinion, i think the officer just wanted a story to tell. “I had to shoot him, my life was in danger”. That is a bunch of crap, and you all know it. Stolen car or not. The vehicle is considered a weapon? Come on now, he was in the wrong, but he did not deserve to get shot. What do you think this young boy could have really been doing? Rolling around being cool. Come on now, get real, you guys are only making dumb comments about it being okay that he was shot, or that he should have been dead, because he stole a car. There are so many dirty cops, you wouldn’t even know. Stop feeding into the BS, because the whole story sounds like a cover up.
Mares-Nest “And he’s expected to survive — so “fighting for his life” is hyperbole. I do hope he survives. I also hope that he chooses a law-abiding path. And I am glad that the police officer was able to go home to his family after this, alive, not in a coffin.”
Excuse me but yes he was fighting for his life! Hum paralyzed completely from the neck down, could not even speak, barely responsive. Even had he survived life was not going to be anything one would want to survive.
I don’t know who you are tntreader518, but you are obviously an insider. I agree completely.
As someone else stated, in this country you are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, people don’t receive the death penalty for stealing cars, or even usually for trying to evade arrest. There is no proof that he was trying to harm the officer, so this isn’t a case of an actual assault. It sounds like he was just trying to escape.
I’m not sure that anyone said that this wasn’t the kid’s fault for initiating the actions leading up to this, but 5 bullets? Give me a break! Can anyone say “excessive force?”
Furthermore, jerks saying things about him getting what he deserved or whatever, think about the way that his family and friends feel. How would you feel if that were your loved one?
Finally, for the person who said he has had two cars stolen, you chose to live there. Don’t like the crime rate, choose another place to live. Not all States have the high crime rate that Washington does.