EVERETT — A man who was shot by Lake Stevens police in 2016 now is facing trial on assault charges for the same incident.
The felony charges — filed two years later — followed a judge’s order banning the man from possessing firearms.
The man, now 25, has severe mental health issues. In the past, he has said that being shot and killed by officers would avoid violating his religious beliefs about taking his own life, according to court records.
Lake Stevens police have been trying to keep another confrontation from occurring. Earlier this year, they sought and obtained a civil order, saying the man had indicated he would try again to get them to kill him.
The 2016 shooting happened on Main Street downtown. The man tried to provoke officers into shooting him, including firing his gun in the air, according to their reports.
Police spent the better part of an hour trying to persuade him to surrender before he ultimately raised his assault rifle to his shoulder and started walking straight at them, records show. A sergeant opened fire, in a use of force that prosecutors later deemed lawful.
The man required extensive medical treatment for gunshot wounds to his torso, right hip and left hand. People who knew him said they believed he was depressed. He also was recovering from a car accident and trying to quit heroin cold turkey while separating from the U.S. Army Reserve.
Since then, the man has had at least two other mental health crises that required a response from the police department, court papers show. In March, he attempted to buy a pistol. That created paperwork that came to the attention of law enforcement, leading to the firearms ban, also called an extreme-risk protection order. The ban is good for one year.
The judge also ordered the man to obtain mental health and chemical dependency evaluations. The last hearing on the civil case was in June, when the court determined he had not yet submitted proof of complying with the evaluation order.
The Daily Herald is not naming the man due to the circumstances. Before this April, he had no criminal history.
Shortly after the ban was issued, the man was charged with second-degree assault against the sergeant.
“Law enforcement has learned that the defendant has recently made more suicidal comments and has again expressed an interest in provoking an armed confrontation with police,” prosecutors wrote in the charges.
They cited an “imminent potential for violence.”
The man was arraigned May 3 and taken into custody. He remains at the Snohomish County Jail, with a pre-trial hearing scheduled Friday.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @rikkiking.
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