OLYMPIA — A prosecutor says no charges will be brought against an Olympia police officer who shot and injured two men he says repeatedly threatened him, including with a skateboard.
At a news conference Wednesday, Thurston County Prosecutor Jon Tunheim said the officer had justification for using force. The suspects will face assault charges.
The May 21 shooting has been investigated by a team of detectives from several agencies.
Olympia Police Officer Ryan Donald has been on administrative leave since the shooting that injured Bryson Chaplin, 21, and Andre Thompson, 24.
“But for the hostile acts of Mr. Chaplin and Mr. Thompson, these shootings would not have occurred,” Tunheim said.
The men will appear in court Sept. 22.
The men’s attorney has said Chaplin is currently paralyzed from the waist down. Donald, who is white, encountered the two men, brothers who are both black, after being called in on a report of an attempt to steal beer from a grocery store by two men carrying skateboards. Police officials have said race was not a factor.
The shooting set off a series of protests in Olympia, Washington’s state capital.
Donald was among those who responded to a 1 a.m. call from a Safeway store.
Officers split up to search for the men. Donald encountered two men with skateboards who fit witnesses’ descriptions, and moments later, he radioed in that shots had been fired.
In radio calls released earlier this year by police, Donald calls dispatchers once he spots the men, and again to report that he fired shots, and that both of them were running.
He told dispatchers that one of the men “assaulted me with his skateboard.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
