Bainbridge Island Review and The Associated Press
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — Authorities said officers fatally wounded a man who fired shots toward the shore from a sailboat in the waters off Bainbridge Island.
Bainbridge Island Police spokeswoman Kellie Stickney said the man opened fire at officers responding to calls around 8:30 p.m. Saturday in Eagle Harbor.
After a roughly four-hour long standoff with police, a Kitsap County regional SWAT team and two police vessels approached the vessel early Sunday.
The gunman’s vessel was near the middle of the harbor and had been put at anchor.
Stickney said the man aimed his weapon at officers and officers shot him early Sunday morning.
She did not know immediately how many officers fired their weapons.
The man’s identity has not been released, but he is being described as a 34-year-old Seattle man.
Bainbridge Island police received multiple reports that the man was armed with more than one weapon, Bainbridge Island Police Chief Matthew Hamner said Sunday.
“He was firing shots everywhere — firing shots at boats at the shore and the officers,” Hamner said. “How nobody got hit’s a miracle.
After the man was shot, police in the two vessels quickly boarded the sailboat and pulled the shooter into a police vessel as Guardian One, a helicopter from the King County Sheriff’s Office, hovered over the harbor and shone a spotlight on the sailboat.
The man was taken to the State Ferries’ shipyard just west of the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal to awaiting medics, and Hamner said the man died at the scene.
The Kitsap County Coroner’s Office has taken custody of the remains, and the man’s identity is expected to be released following an autopsy in the coming days.
The State Patrol is leading the investigation into the shooting.
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Bainbridge Island Review writers Brian Kelly and Luciano Marano contributed to this report. Material from The Associated Press was also used.
