Fatal police shooting in Everett backyard detailed in new reports

Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 20, 2023

EVERETT — In April 2022, Charles Hubbard yelled at his neighbors in front of their house, accusing them of blocking the road with their car, an Everett police report says.

His girlfriend threatened to “call immigration,” believing they were from Mexico, according to the report in Hubbard’s 640-plus-page case file. The couple eventually went inside and called the police to report harassment.

An Everett police officer showed up to the couple’s door. Hubbard answered, apparently intoxicated, with a pistol in hand. The sergeant instructed him to put the gun down. Hubbard complied. The officer found no probable cause that the gun was intended to harm his neighbors and left, the report said.

Eleven months later, following a two-hour standoff where Hubbard reportedly told officers he had “enough ammunition to kill us all,” a SWAT team shot him to death in his backyard in the 800 block of 91st Place SW.

Five officers played some role in the fatal shooting of Hubbard in March, according to new reports released by the Skagit-Island Multiple Agency Response Team, a cadre of detectives who conducted an independent investigation.

Two officers fired rifles.

Two fired rounds from “less lethal” launchers.

The fifth alerted the team that Hubbard appeared to be armed.

• Snohomish County sheriff’s detective Myles Bittinger, the leader of the team that cornered Hubbard in the backyard, fired an estimated nine shots from a .223-caliber rifle.

• Everett police officer Blake Wintch, fired roughly five .223-caliber rounds from a SIG Sauer MCX multi-caliber rifle with an attached suppressor.

• Sheriff’s deputy Dan Uhrich fired rounds from a less-lethal 40 mm launcher.

• Sheriff’s deputy Jonathan Ricksecker fired a pepperball launcher.

• Everett police officer Zach Wold, who was carrying a shield for the SWAT team, yelled, “Gun!” when Hubbard reportedly pulled out a firearm. Wold did not open fire.

The report categorized Bittinger, Wintch and Uhrich as “shooting officers.” Wold and Ricksecker were considered “witnesses.”

Until now, the SMART team had only publicly identified Bittinger and Wintch. Both were placed on paid administrative leave by their police agenices.

An independent investigation is required whenever deadly force is used, following the passage of Initiative 940 in 2018 and Substitute House Bill 1064 in 2019. This investigation, completed four months after Hubbard’s death, revealed the clearest timeline yet of the events on March 10.

The incident began around 11 p.m., when officers responded to a domestic violence call at the Hubbard home. Officers found Hubbard’s girlfriend on the sidewalk with apparent injuries, police records say. Hubbard reportedly assaulted her in their home, then stayed inside while she escaped.

“He tried to kill me,” she repeated three times to officers. “… If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I would have got out.”

Hubbard was wanted on a previous warrant for harassment in connection to an incident in January 2022. Officers found probable cause for a domestic violence assault, later changing the charge to second-degree assault domestic violence.

Court records show a history of domestic violence reported by Hubbard’s previous wife.

The Everett man had been with his new partner for six years, according to the investigation documents. They lived together for about a year. The woman told investigators Hubbard had been “physically abusing” her, a sheriff’s deputy wrote in a report. Hubbard had “at least two handguns and two semi auto rifles,” the woman reported to investigators.

She reported to officers he had been “acting crazy” in the past six months, having suicidal episodes and becoming increasingly violent toward her in the past three days.

Around midnight, officers used a loudspeaker outside the home calling for his arrest. Officers saw Hubbard in the window, but he did not respond to the calls, investigative records say. Police called in the Region 1 SWAT team, a team of officers and deputies from Everett, Lake Stevens and the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

With the SWAT team outside, Hubbard opened and closed the front door repeatedly, documents say. He reportedly pointed a pistol out the window. At one point, officers reported Hubbard flipped his middle finger at them.

Law enforcement spoke to Hubbard on the girlfriend’s cell phone roughly eight times, according to an officer’s account. Officers noted Hubbard sounded intoxicated during these calls. Hubbard also texted his significant other, refusing to go to jail, threatening to “kill (the cops) because of you” and warning: “I’m going out with a (expletive) bang bang (expletives).”

Around 1:20 a.m., an officer saw Hubbard behind the fence in his backyard and believed he was trying to flee. Bittinger’s team, which was in charge of providing “interior containment,” then “pulled down a section of the fence” in the northwest corner, Wold wrote in his report. Bittinger reportedly instructed his team to move forward past the fence line, where they found Hubbard standing in the northeast corner.

Team members reportedly yelled at Hubbard that he was under arrest. Wold saw Hubbard reach for a black gun in his waistband and had “no doubt Hubbard was about to shoot us,” he said to investigators.

Wold yelled: “Gun!”

Bittinger and Wintch opened fire on Hubbard with their service rifles, the documents say. The other two officers fired their less-lethal weapons.

It is unclear exactly how many shots were fired, though body camera footage from Wold and Wintch confirmed there were multiple shots. The report notes Bittinger had not been issued a camera.

SWAT members ran up to Hubbard and saw his index finger on the trigger of a black TT-33 semiautomatic handgun, according to investigative reports. Officers attempted CPR.

Hubbard was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 52 and survived by two grown children.

Detectives later found a Ruger LCP semiautomatic pistol in his right pocket, investigative papers say.

The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Hubbard died from multiple gunshot wounds. He’d been shot in the head and chest.

None of the “shooting officers” provided an account to investigators.

Bittinger, a nine-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, did not answer investigator questions.

Wintch, who began as a deputy in 2016, agreed to answer questions about his weapon, but not about what happened.

In 2020, Wintch wrote in a self-assessment that he acted in a “high number of use of forces” incidents as an officer. Wintch was involved in 11 incidents of police force from January 2019 to March 2020, investigation papers say.

“I know that during many/most of these incidents, I would attempt de-escalation and often it would be unsuccessful due to the actions of the subject,” Wintch said in the 2020 assessment. “However in some situations I believe I could have utilized more verbal communications/tactics to alleviate the situation at hand to avoid getting into physical altercations with the person I was attempting to arrest.”

The Hubbard case was forwarded to Snohomish County Prosecutor Jason Cummings, who said his office was reviewing investigative materials to decide if the use of force was justified. He hoped to make a decision by the end of the summer.

Maya Tizon: 425-339-3434; maya.tizon@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @mayatizon.