On Oct. 21, King County Sheriff’s Deputies who had responded to a report of an armed, suicidal woman on the Muckleshoot Reservation with children in the house shot and killed the woman, Renee Davis, 23.
On Monday, King County Sheriff John Urquhart ordered the release of additional information bearing on what happened before and during the shooting. Here, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), is what happened and when.
Just before 6:37 p.m., according to the KCSO, Deputy Nicholas Pritchett, an eight-year veteran of the force, was in his patrol car in a parking lot at the Muckleshoot Pow Wow Grounds in the 17600 block of Southeast 392 Street, when a man whom he recognized from prior contacts pulled into the parking lot.
“She’s going crazy again. I can’t be around her when she is like this,” T.J. Molina said of his girlfriend, Davis. According to the KCSO, Pritchett knew that Davis and Molina were in a dating relationship, and that she had small children.
Davis was pregnant.
According to the KCSO, Molina showed Pritchett a text message Davis had sent him about 20 minutes earlier. It said: “Well come get the girls or call 911 I’m about to shoot myself.”
According to the KCSO, Pritchett asked Molina whether Davis had access to guns, and Molina informed him that Davis had his, Molina’s, 30-30 rifle. At that time, Pritchett got on the radio and reported a “suicidal female possibly armed with a rifle and has her two kids with her.”
At 6:38 p.m., according to the KCSO, Pritchett got on the radio again to report that “(Davis) is texting (Molina) pictures of fresh injuries, unsure who is injured.”
According to the KCSO, while Pritchett was en route, 911 informed him that aid was on the way, but that the closest deputy to back him up was more than 20 minutes away. Another deputy, Tim Lewis, a 3-year veteran of the force, who was on his way home from training and in the area, said he would provide back up.
According to the KCSO, when the two deputies arrived at the house in the 15800 block of SE 382nd Place, they knocked on the door, announced who they were and called Davis by name to get her to answer the door. Nobody responded, but according to the KCSO, Pritchett and Lewis could see kids wandering around inside the house.
At this point, according to the KCSO, the deputies, worried that Davis had taken her own life, and concerned about the children, got the attention of one of the children through a window and asked the child to open the door.
According to the KCSO, at first, neither deputy saw Davis in the house. When one of the deputies asked the children where Davis was, they pointed to a room with its door closed.
According to the KCSO, Pritchett and Lewis knocked repeatedly on the door, identifying themselves as sheriff’s deputies, and called Davis by name. When nobody responded, the deputies feared Davis might have taken her own life, so they moved the children to the porch where they could not see inside the room in case Davis had, in fact, committed suicide.
When the deputies entered the room, they saw Davis lying on the bed, covered with a blanket. Both deputies asked her to show her hands, but she didn’t, according to the KCSO. According to the KCSO, one deputy pulled the blanket off Davis, and, seeing she had a handgun in one hand and a gun magazine in the other, tried to back out of the room even as they were ordering Davis to put the gun down.
According to the KCSO, at this moment, Davis lifted the handgun and pointed it at the deputies, who both fired. Although aid car personnel were called into the house, Davis was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the KCSO, when deputies examined the magazine, they found it fully loaded; however, the gun itself, a semi-automatic 9mm, was empty.
According to an ATF trace, Davis bought the gun on April 1, 2016 at the Federal Way Sportsman’s Warehouse.
According to the KCSO, Pritchett has been assigned to the Muckleshoot Reservation for seven years. Prior to working for the Sheriff’s Office, he was an EMT. Before joining the KCSO, Lewis was a United States Marine for six years and spent 3½ years working U.S. Embassy Security assignments. Both deputies have attended the state required Crisis Intervention Training (CIT 8 hours) which focuses on dealing with mentally ill persons in crisis and have received bi-annual on-line training in dealing with the mentally ill, according to the KCSO.
The investigation of this shooting is continuing. Additional steps include a review by the Prosecutor’s Office for possible criminal charges, an administrative review by the Sheriff’s Office for training or policy violations; a Shooting Review Board to see if the shooting followed departmental policy; and an Inquest, held at the request of the King County Executive.
