2 sheriff’s deputies shot in Washington State’s Pierce County, airlifted to area hospitals

2 sheriff’s deputies shot in Washington state

EATONVILLE, Wash. — A man has died and two Pierce County sheriff’s deputies have been critically injured in a shooting southest of Tacoma, officials in Washington state said Monday.

Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said the two deputies were shot Monday at 8:48 p.m. while responding to a domestic violence dispute between two brothers near Eatonville, a rural community in the Cascade foothills.

Troyer told reporters at the scene that one of the brothers wanted the other out of the house.

Sheriff’s were called and were greeted at the door by one brother, while the other was in the house arming himself, Troyer said. When the deputies entered the house, the second brother opened fire on the deputies, hitting one of them multiple times.

“This is somebody that was laying in wait for our guys, armed themselves, with the intent on shooting them,” Troyer told reporters near the shooting scene. “There’s not much we’re going to be able to do when somebody is hiding and arming themselves and we have somebody else inviting us into the residence and the second person opens fire on us.”

Officers were able to return fire and kill the suspect, Troyer said.

Both deputies were in critical condition, with one taken to Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma and the other airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Television cameras showed police holding up sheets to protect the privacy of one of the officers after arriving at Harborview Medical Center.

Three weeks ago, four Lakewood police officers — Sgt. Mark Renninger and officers Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold and Greg Richards — were shot and killed at a suburban coffee shop in Parkland, Wash. before the start of their shift.

After a two-day manhunt, Maurice Clemmons was shot to death by a Seattle police officer.

Authorities said Clemmons singled out the officers and spared employees and other customers at the coffee shop in Parkland, a Tacoma suburb about 35 miles south of Seattle. He then fled but not before one of the dying officers shot him in the torso. Prosecutors said several members of a network of family and friends have been arrested for allegedly helping him elude capture.

The killing of the four officers came a month after the Halloween night killing of Seattle Officer Timothy Brenton as he sat in his patrol car. Christopher Monfort, 41, has been charged with aggravated first-degree murder in Brenton’s death.