By Cathy Logg
Herald Writer
EVERETT – A 22-year-old Everett man was listed in critical condition after being shot when he confronted two officers in the street as they arrived at the scene of a reported disturbance.
The man was armed with a shotgun and was wounded in the upper torso after multiple shots were fired, Everett police Sgt. Boyd Bryant said. The shooting occurred shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday in the 2200 block of Lombard Avenue. The man was the only person injured.
The two officers, a 10-year veteran and an officer in training, have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure pending the investigation, Bryant said.
The two officers arrived about a minute after a 911 emergency call regarding a disturbance and a woman screaming in the street, Bryant said. One person who called 911 said someone was armed. He declined to discuss the nature of the disturbance, but said when the two officers arrived they were confronted in the street by a man with a shotgun.
“We don’t leap to any conclusions or go with initial impressions,” Bryant said. “We have to refrain from any speculation.”
The man who was shot either lived at the house or had ties to the house where the shooting occurred; he also has a prior criminal record, Bryant said.
Rob Davis, who lives on the opposite side of the street and the other end of the block, was showing his two younger brothers, Cyrus and Sol Davis, a building he owns. As they came out of the building, “We heard two pops,” Rob Davis said.
They walked up the street and saw two officers with flashlights and a man on the ground.
“He had a shotgun right next to him,” Davis said, describing the weapon he saw on the ground as a pistol-grip assault shotgun.
A female officer was going through the man’s pockets and another officer was asking the wounded man for his identification, Davis said.
“She was taking stuff out of his pockets – keys and all kinds of personal effects,” he said. “Then she lifted up his shirt. I couldn’t tell, but I thought he was shot in the chest. Other officers showed up and they were trying to help the guy out. Inside of like two minutes, there were all kinds of them here.”
Davis saw what he believed was an ammunition clip for a rifle among the man’s personal effects.
The man flailed around on the ground and appeared to go in and out of consciousness, Davis said. He didn’t hear the man say anything.
A police officer appeared to be crying and another officer was comforting him, patting him on the shoulder, he said.
After the shooting, a pregnant woman was in the street “freaking out” and talking about having to “get the baby out,” Davis said.
Police taped off the area from the corner of 22nd and Lombard to about halfway down the block. Some neighbors watched as detectives arrived and began talking to residents and looking for evidence. A police car also blocked the street at 23rd to keep all but police and residents out of the area.
The man who was shot was taken to Providence Everett Medical Center’s Colby Campus, where he underwent surgery, a nursing supervisor said.
The most recent Everett officer-involved shooting in which anyone was injured was February 1990, when Officer Greg Lineberry and now-retired Officer Jerry Mathis were wounded by a despondent man who repeatedly shot at police before killing himself. Both officers received superficial wounds. A bystander who also was hit by a bullet received the most serious injuries.
The investigation of Saturday’s shooting will be conducted by the Snohomish County Multi-Agency Response Team (S.M.A.R.T.), headed by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, Bryant said.
“That’s to assure objectivity in any officer-involved shooting involving serious injury,” he said.
“We don’t believe there’s any risk to the general public,” he said. “This is not part of an ongoing thing. The situation is contained.”
“It’s crazy that it happened like that,” Sol Davis said. “I just came to see my brother and his new house. I haven’t seen him in a long time and a guy gets shot in the street.”
Rob Davis has alarms on both of his buildings and a camera because previous incidents in which one of his buildings was burglarized and about $4,000 worth of property was stolen, and his children’s bicycles were stolen,
“It’s been better the last two years,” he said. “I’ve seen people around here I thought were going to steal a car, and if you call the cops, they come really fast, even if it’s just a prowler call.
“It’s getting tougher. It makes me wonder – somebody carrying around a pistol-grip shotgun in the neighborhood. It’s a nice neighborhood,” Davis said.
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