The shooting death of a Roy man who deputies said increasingly threatened his neighbors and fired a gun at a sheriff’s department plane was lawful, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office said today.

Raymond G. LaMadeleine, 50 when he died, was fatally shot in the torso by a Pierce County Sheriff’s Department sharpshooter Jan. 31.

Deputies went to take LaMadeleine into custody at the property he was renting because of his escalating threats, prosecutors said.

SWAT team members heard gunshots as they approached the residence, and the sharpshooter fired when he saw LaMadeleine shoot a rifle at a sheriff’s department plane flying over the property, prosecutors said.

The sheriff’s department responded to multiple reports of LaMadeleine shooting at nearby properties and threatening neighbors throughout the previous year, prosecutors said.

Deputies had taken away guns from LaMadeleine previously, and had him involuntarily committed in November after he threatened to kill a neighbor, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said at the time.

LaMadeleine had called public officials and threatened to kill his neighbors and police officers if he was kicked off the property, after he received an eviction notice in January, prosecutors said.

Investigations into the death are finished, and Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said it was a justifiable homicide under state law.