Here is a message Mayor Sean Guard put on his Facebook page:
A long day is starting to come to an end in Washougal. Police and fire officials are finally able to start searching the area of a multiple-structure fire today in which the occupant starting shooting, including shooting out the front windows of one of our first responding police officer’s patrol car.
This massive effort to keep our community and children safe involved many agencies including Wa…shougal Police & Fire, Camas Fire, police and EMS, East County Fire & Rescue, Clark County Sheriff’s Office, Vancouver police, SW Washington SWAT, Portland Police and Bomb Squad, Washington State Patrol, Alcohol, Tabacco & Firearms and the Regional Major Crimes team.
As Mayor of our community, I offer my heartfelt thanks to all of the responding agencies for their response and their selfless service to the community.
While we will not know for many days exactly what transpired today, we have public servants who once again put their own lives at risk so that innocent lives would be saved.
For those parents and grandparents who had children in the schools today or at the bus facility, our children were in the safest place they could be in while being watched over by professionals. Some people do not understand the need for the lockdowns, but this day has had so many issues within issues that our children (two of my grandchildren included) were far safer being inside locked down buildings rather than having the additional vehicle traffic in the area or students wandering the neighborhoods on foot. There is no humanly possible way to get all of the information out to everyone, but we do continue to improve the alert systems and the information available to the public. Our school administrators were also operating under alot of stress.
For all of our emergency responders, our community is here for you.
Finally, to our Washougal Police Officer who received minor injuries, please know that you had an angel on your shoulder this morning. Most of the public will never know how close today came to being much, much more tragic than it already turns out to be. God bless you for your service and your positive attitude after the incident and be sure to give your wife and children extra hugs this evening.
To the residents of Washougal, please be sure to give an extra wave or thank you to our police, fire and EMS personnel when you next see them. Hero’s, all.
