Police kill armed man in Fruit Valley

Vancouver police officers early Tuesday shot and killed a man they described as armed and threatening. Investigators spent most of the day piecing together the circumstances that led to the shooting, which occurred on the street in the 3000 block of Fruit Valley Road, just north of West Fourth Plain Boulevard.

Detectives spent Tuesday focused on the shooting scene and the apartment of the dead man at Fruit Valley Commons, 1912 W. 31st St. They also searched the man’s white Chevrolet pickup truck.

The situation that resulted in the shooting remains unclear. Neighbors say they heard yelling, then shots.

A disturbance was reported to 911 at 3:35 a.m., according to police logs. A man was reportedly walking in the neighborhood, armed with a handgun.

When police arrived, they said, they directed the man to drop his weapon. He refused. Three officers then fired on the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

No police officers were injured.

They recovered the man’s handgun at the scene, said Kim Kapp, a police department spokeswoman.

Kapp provided few details Tuesday, and said the officers’ names and the name of the deceased would be released today. Officials said they want to ensure through fingerprinting and an autopsy that they have a definitive match before releasing the man’s name.

Neighbors described the man as an Iraq War veteran.

Sarah Selby, whose fence runs along Fruit Valley Road opposite of where 28th Street intersects, said she counted between six and eight shots. By some neighbors’ accounts, as many as 14 shots were fired.

“It was insanely loud,” said Selby, who first heard a yell, then “boom, boom, boom.”

“I thought we were under military attack,” she said.

Three blocks of Fruit Valley Road near Fourth Plain Boulevard were blocked for several hours, but reopened just before 1 p.m.

The overnight incident was the seventh officer-involved shooting in Washington in the past three weeks:

o On Saturday, a man was killed in a confrontation with Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies at Gold Bar after they used a stun gun.

o On Friday, police shot and killed a man who was waving a knife at a bus stop in Tacoma.

o On Friday night, Seattle police shot and wounded a man who leveled a rifle at officers. Police said the wounded man remained in stable condition Tuesday.

o Federal Way police on Aug. 31 shot and killed a man in a stolen truck they said tried to run down an officer.

o That same day, a man stopped breathing after Pierce County deputies used a stun gun on him during a disturbance at an apartment in Spanaway.

o On Aug. 30, a Seattle officer shot and killed a wood carver at a downtown intersection when he refused to put down his knife.

o On Aug. 25, a Spokane County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed the owner of a Spokane Valley nursery who had armed himself to check on what he thought was a prowler in the parking lot.

Laura McVicker of The Columbian and The Associated Press contributed to this report.