ARLINGTON — Criminal charges won’t be filed against two Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies who killed an armed man outside his Arlington home last summer.
Dwight Monnie was shot July 2 after he pointed a handgun at deputies during a confrontation on his front porch. Monnie died about a week later at a Seattle hospital.
“Dwight Monnie was a distraught 64-year-old man armed with a loaded handgun. Deputies did everything they could to diffuse the situation, but when he pointed that gun at them, they had no choice but to shoot before one of them was killed,” Snohomish County Prosecutor Mark Roe wrote in a letter to detectives who led the investigation.
Roe concluded that the shooting was legally justified and announced Friday that he won’t seek criminal charges against either deputy.
Deputies were summoned to a house in rural Arlington after receiving a 911 call reporting that Monnie had a handgun and was threatening to shoot his wife. Deputies were told that Monnie was pursuing the woman with a gun and had threatened to shoot himself after he killed his wife.
The house, concealed by trees and shrubs, was not visible from the road. Deputies slowly moved up the driveway using a patrol car for cover. They saw Monnie sitting on the porch. He had a gun in his hand and was smoking a cigarette, Roe wrote.
He yelled at deputies to turn off the patrol car’s emergency lights and said there would be “no cooperation, no peace.”
Deputies turned off the lights and tried to negotiate with Monnie. They repeatedly asked him to drop his gun. He refused and said that they would have to shoot him, Roe wrote. Deputies continued to talk to Monnie, trying to persuade him to surrender.
Four deputies had taken cover behind and beside the patrol car. Another deputy was behind a tree a few feet away.
After several minutes Monnie told deputies “he had given them their ‘last warning,’ ” Roe wrote. The Arlington man then raised his handgun and pointed it at the patrol car.
The deputy behind the tree and one next to the car fired their rifles. Monnie was hit by the gunfire.
“While they never want to take a life, on this occasion, they had no safe or prudent option. Mr. Monnie was a very real threat to the deputies and everyone else present,” Roe wrote.
A total of three shots were fired. Ballistic tests were unable to determine which of the two rifles delivered the fatal shot.
Monnie died July 8 at Harborview Medical Center.
The shooting was investigated by the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team, a task force of homicide detectives from around the county. Detectives from Bothell and Everett led the investigation.
Three other officer-involved shootings from 2009 remain under investigation.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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