SPOKANE — A Whitman County prosecutor on Tuesday determined an officer who shot at a Washington State University student holding a knife in a campus dormitory last year acted in good faith.
WSU Police Officer Dillon Tiedeman Mueller and his sergeant responded to the Global Scholars Hall dorm after 20-year-old student John Bazan called 911 to say a student had a knife. He described himself, according to a document released by the prosecutor’s office, because he had planned to die from “suicide by cop.”
When the officers got to the dorms, Bazan kept his hands in his pockets as the police attempted de-escalation tactics, the document said.
Officers told him to stop and take his hands out of his pockets, but he didn’t comply, the document said. An officer deployed a stun gun, but it was not effective.