LawOfficer.com Editor's Note: Incredible, but it has happened again. Two Pierce County (Wash.) deputies have been shot as they were investigating a disturbance between two brothers. The shooting appears to be an outright, unprovoked attack. Pierce County is where the four Lakewood PD officers were killed just two weeks ago. I was there last week, visiting with the Pierce County chaplain and the whole region was reeling from the deaths, especially after an ambush slaying of a Seattle PD officer on Halloween. This is going to hit the region especially hard.
-Dale Stockton, Editor in Chief
Gov. Gregoire s Statement
Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy Statement
EATONVILLE, Wash. – Two sheriff's officers responding to a dispute between two brothers were shot by one of the men lying in wait after being welcomed into the home by the other, authorities said. The gunman was killed and the officers were seriously wounded.
It was the third shooting of police officers in Washington state in three months.
Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said a sergeant and a deputy were shot at around 8:45 p.m. Monday while responding to a dispute between David E. Crable and his brother near Eatonville, a rural community in the Cascade foothills.
Crable, 35, shot the two officers before he was killed when they returned fire, Troyer said. The names of the officers were not immediately released.
The officers were met at the door by Crable's brother, Troyer said. When the deputies entered the house, Crable opened fire from upstairs, hitting one of the officers multiple times.
"This is somebody that was laying in wait for our guys, armed themselves, with the intent on shooting them," Troyer told reporters near the shooting scene. "There's not much we're going to be able to do when somebody is hiding and arming themselves and we have somebody else inviting us into the residence and the second person opens fire on us."
Crable's family tried to help the wounded officers by providing first aid and barricading themselves in a room away from the shooter, Troyer said. Police said the brother was cooperating with investigators and did not call him a suspect.
"It looks like people that were in this residence went out of their way to help our people," he said.
The sergeant was taken to Madigan Army Medical Center and was listed in serious condition, Troyer said. The deputy was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and is in critical condition in the intensive care unit, he said.
"Most people of the community as we have seen in the last few weeks have a tremendous regard for (law enforcement)," Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said at the scene late Monday. "But there are people in the community that don't come from there, and that's the people we deal with day after day."
Pierce County sheriff's records show Crable was convicted earlier this year of exhibiting or displaying a weapon with intent to intimidate.
He also has been arrested for malicious mischief and assault and had a no-contact order by his 16-year-old daughter who lived with Crable's brother. Troyer said Crable had a history of "terrorizing" his family.
The shooting comes three weeks after four Lakewood police officers were shot and killed at a coffee shop before their shift. After a two-day manhunt, suspect Maurice Clemmons was shot to death by a Seattle police officer.
A month before, Seattle Officer Timothy Brenton was killed as he sat in his patrol car Halloween night. Christopher Monfort, 41, has been charged with aggravated first-degree murder in Brenton's death.
___
AP photographer Ted S. Warren in Eatonville, Wash. contributed to this report.
Additional Coverage and Updates on LawOfficer Connect