TACOMA — A Pierce County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a 25-year-old former soldier late Friday after a confrontation in University Place.
The shooting happened about 11:40 p.m. after two young men who apparently had been fighting came out of an apartment building in the 9800 block of 52nd Street West and one of them leveled a shotgun in the direction of deputies, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said.
“What happened is unfortunate, but you just can’t do that,” Troyer said Saturday.
The name of the man killed was not released Saturday.
Troyer gave this account of the shooting and what led up to it:
The deputies arrived at the apartment building, near the Chambers Bay Golf Course, in response to 911 calls reporting sounds of a fight inside a first floor unit.
Within seconds of the deputies’ arrival, two men emerged from the apartment.
One man immediately lay on the grass and called out for help; the other came out carrying a pistol-grip shotgun.
“He was told to put it down and instead he leveled it up,” Troyer said. “We don’t know if it was at his friend or the deputy.”
When the man refused to lay down the shotgun one of the deputies shot him, Troyer said. The man died at the scene.
Deputies were told the fight started after the man who died was accused by his 24-year-old friend of having participated in car prowls and other thefts in the area.
“The fight was pretty brutal,” Troyer said. “There was blood in multiple places in the apartment. There was a kitchen knife that was part of it, a frying pan.
There was broken glass. Both of them were bloodied up, so they had a pretty big brawl.”
Both men were recently discharged from the Army, Troyer said. The man who was killed lived in the apartment with his girlfriend, who was not home at the time, the spokesman said.
Deputies found other shotguns, rifles and several handguns inside the apartment, Troyer said.
The deputy who shot the man was placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure for when a deputies fires his weapon, Troyer said. The deputy, whose name was not released, has been in the department for at least 20 years, he said.
