By Pepper Fisher
BRINNON, Wash. – The 6-month investigation of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s officer-involved shooting that occurred last year is finally complete and has been turned over to the Jefferson County Prosecutor’s Office.
State law mandates that an independent investigation must be conducted any time a law enforcement officer uses deadly force. It requires the investigation proceed in the same manner as a criminal investigation, completely independent of the involved agency.
In this case, State Troopers, along with Mason County and Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s detectives responded to the Brinnon Community Center on Highway 101 on Friday, September 23 to investigate an officer-involved shooting involving Jefferson County Deputy Sergeant Ryan Menday and Detective Brian Anderson.
Deputies Menday and Anderson called dispatch to report shots fired near the community center at 2:44 p.m. Both deputies fired their duty weapons at the suspect, 49-year-old Timothy Conner of Bremerton.
The Kitsap Sun reports Conner was facing two counts of second-degree rape of a child in Kitsap County. Connor was wanted for a bench warrant because he did not show up for a court hearing in April, but the deputies initially contacted him Sept. 23 while investigating a hit-and-run crash. Connor was not driving the vehicle. It was being driven by a woman who struck a parked car.
When Anderson attempted to arrest Connor on the warrant, he fled in a vehicle. Hours later, Connor returned to the area and crashed his vehicle into a parked car and then fled on foot. When Anderson and Menday found him, Connor presented a weapon, investigators said. A handgun that did not belong to either Anderson or Menday was found at the scene.
Conner was later airlifted from the scene of the shooting to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where he was pronounced deceased the same day.
The fact that the investigation has now been turned over to the Jefferson County Prosecutor’s Office implies that this case is not over. We asked Prosecutor James Kennedy what comes next.
“There will be a review. I am asking Tony Golik, who is the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney and the current president of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, to chair a panel of four to five prosecuting attorneys to review the discovery of the officer-involved shooting and make a recommendation to me, as to whether charges should be filed or not. If not, I will provide a letter explaining why charges are not being filed. And if the recommendation is to charge, then I will appoint a Special Deputy Prosecuting Attorney to further handle the case.”