Road-rage shooting ends with man’s suicide

The circumstances leading to what police are calling a road-rage shooting that ended in a suicide Sunday night are beginning to emerge.

The Clark County Sheriff’s Office on Monday morning said the gunman, Kenneth L. Hartson, 42, shot and killed himself after he was cornered by police at the edge of a driveway in Brush Prairie.

The case surfaced at 9:43 p.m. Sunday, when Lindi Seifert, 24, of Vancouver, reported she’d been driving north on Northeast 117th Avenue, also known as state Highway 503, in Brush Prairie when a driver in a newer Dodge pickup truck shot out two windows in her car near 149th Street. Hartson, also of Vancouver, was driving the truck, sheriff’s deputies said.

Lindi Seifert followed the gunman to the edge of Battle Ground, took down the vehicle’s license number and gave it to 911 dispatchers.

“She did not know him,” Ryan Seifert, Lindi’s husband, said Monday night. “He’s a complete stranger.”

Ryan Seifert said his wife had stopped for a red light on the highway and Hartson’s truck was stopped in an oncoming lane facing her. When the light turned green, he said, Hartson had the right of way but stayed stopped, as Lindi Seifert waited.

“She decided to go because he was just sitting there,” the husband said.

That’s when Hartson began following his wife’s car north, and fired his gun, Ryan Seifert said.

When sheriff’s reached Lindi Seifert, they found bullet holes in both back-door windows, they said.

A short time later, a sheriff’s deputy was checking the area where the truck’s registered owner lived. The deputy spotted the truck on Padden Parkway near 152nd Avenue. The deputy followed the truck’s driver, Hartson, while waiting for more officers to rush to the area and help stop the truck.

As more deputies reached the area with lights flashing, Hartson sped up while heading northbound on Highway 503, according to a press release issued by Sgt. Tony Barnes.

A sheriff’s sergeant deployed spike strips at 131st Street and Highway 503, puncturing and flattening the truck’s passenger-side tires. Undeterred, Hartson continued, turning west onto 149th Street. He traveled a narrow rural road to a dead-end, where a sheriff’s deputy employed a PIT maneuver, using the patrol car to push the truck into a spin. The truck stopped against a tree with patrol cars blocking it.

Hartson had taken out part of a white fence and left skid marks in the mud. A chunk of bark was ripped off the cherry tree.

With nowhere to go, deputies say Hartson killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot. No deputies fired their weapons.

Emily Stewart said the showdown took place at the edge of her family’s yard.

“I heard, ‘Put your hands up,’” said Stewart, 18, who was on the phone when she heard sirens and peered out her window at “six or seven cop cars.”

She said she heard a single gunshot.

The Clark County Major Crimes Unit is investigating.

Meanwhile, Ryan Seifert said he was angry that the sheriff’s office released his and his wife’s address, since she is the victim. He said he and his wife were wary of possible retribution and had asked deputies not to release their address.

“We have been just swarmed,” he said. “We had five or six news crews at our house.”

As a result, the husband said, he and his wife were thinking of staying somewhere else.

A family member of Hartson’s, reached by phone in Vancouver, said she couldn’t comment.