Prosecutor: 2009 police shooting in Bothell was justified

Published 12:01 am Wednesday, March 9, 2011

EVERETT — Adam J. Smith was not himself the night he was fatally shot by a Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy.

He was paranoid and confused, likely from the hallucinogenic mushrooms he ingested earlier. His fiance and her father tried to calm him, but he was convinced there were people outsid

e who wanted to harm him.

Sheriff’s Deputy James Kunard Jr. shot Smith on Dec. 31, 2009, after the Bothell man ignored the deputy’s orders and pursued another man while armed with a screwdriver.

Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe has concluded that the shooting was legally justified. No criminal charges are expected to be filed against Kunard in connection with the shooting.

“Any death is tragic, especially the death of someone so young, but your investigation, and the physical evidence at the scene, corroborate the witness statements and that of the deputy,” Roe wrote in a March 4 letter to detectives. “The results are sad and continue to fill Adam Smith’s family with grief, but I don’t believe the deputy had any reasonable alternative under the circumstances.”

The Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team forwarded its investigation to Roe last fall. The investigation included more than 700 pages of police reports detailing the events of the night. Hundreds of photographs were taken to document the scene and more than 100 items were gathered as evidence, including six casings, Smith’s clothing, Kunard’s .45-caliber Sig Sauer and flower petals and a vase found near the scene.

Kunard was summoned to a Bothell condominium after Smith, 26, struck his fiance’s father in the face with a screwdriver. The woman’s father, who was distraught over the young man’s death, told investigators he didn’t think Smith even knew he was holding a screwdriver when he hit him.

When the deputy arrived, he saw three men in the parking area. One man, the father of Smith’s fiance, was bleeding from the face. A second man obeyed the deputy’s commands to lie on the ground. Smith, still armed with the screwdriver, “either didn’t hear, didn’t understand or chose to ignore” the deputy’s commands to drop the tool, Roe wrote.

Instead, he headed in the direction of the man on the ground. That man got up and screamed to the deputy that he was about to he killed.

“To the deputy, that looked to be a realistic possibility,” Roe wrote.

Kunard continued to yell at Smith, who didn’t even look in his direction but continued toward the other man.

“With one man bleeding from the face, a second man scared for his life, and Mr. Smith heading towards that man with a screwdriver, the deputy had to make a decision,” Roe wrote.

He couldn’t safely approach Smith, or use his electric stun gun, “but the deputy also couldn’t just stand by and watch,” Roe said.

Kunard fired.

The investigation found that Smith didn’t stop when shot. Instead, he screamed and appeared to pick up speed in pursuit of his neighbor.

“He didn’t even look at me,” Kunard said.

Kunard said he yelled at Smith to stop before he shot, and continued to yell at the man as he ran past the deputy. Smith was hit two or three times more. He took a few more steps and then crumpled to the ground. He was still holding on to the screwdriver, witnesses said.

Paramedics tried to revive Smith but he died in the back of an ambulance. The autopsy found he’d been shot five times.

“Adam Smith was by all accounts a nice young man, was much loved, and will be missed by many,” Roe wrote. “Law enforcement officers have to make split second decisions based on what they see in front of them, combined with their knowledge, training, and experience.”

Kunard was put on administrative leave after Smith’s death. He has since returned to work, sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said.

Now that the criminal review is complete and Roe has made his findings, the sheriff’s office expects to begin an internal investigation into the shooting to determine if Kunard violated any department policies, Hover said.

“We believe that, generally, it’s not good practice to conduct an internal investigation while the criminal investigation is being conducted. We don’t want to do anything that might compromise a criminal investigation,” she said.

Additionally, sheriff’s officials review the criminal investigation as part of their internal probe, Hover said.

Deputies often return to work before an internal investigation is completed.

Under sheriff’s office policy, deputies involved in shootings are immediately placed on leave. The deputy first is interviewed by detectives. Then, he undergoes a confidential, professionally supervised debriefing in part to help the deputy manage any stress related to the incident.

After that, it is up to sheriff’s office commanders to decide if the deputy returns to work.

“We have a lot of preliminary information that helps us make a decision regarding the deputy being cleared to go back to work,” Hover said.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.