A man shot dead by a sheriff’s deputy after he fatally stabbed four people outside his mother’s home near Gig Harbor, Washington, on Tuesday morning was the subject of domestic violence protection orders recording mental health and substance abuse issues stretching back at least five years.
Records reviewed by Associated Press show that the woman living at the address had obtained a 12-month protection order against her 32-year-old son in May. The order noted that he struggled from substance abuse, and had threatened his mother saying that her “grave has been already dug up”.
The records show that the mother told officials that her son had been “threatening me, abusing me both mentally and emotionally. Doing witchcraft/occult behavior and doing rituals in my home. Damaging personal belongings. Hurting my cat … I am an elderly disabled woman and he is taking advantage of me and my health.”
The man, 32, was shot dead by a deputy from the Pierce county sheriff’s office as he arrived to serve the protection notice on the individual. Reports of stabbing were made at about 9.30am and the man, who has not yet been identified, was killed at about 9.33am.
The Seattle Times reported that the mother, who has also not been named, had pressed for two protection orders since December 2020. Those early protection orders reported that the woman’s son had been having mental health problems and had threatened her daughter with a knife inside the home.
In the petition to Pierce county superior court last April, the woman said that her son was delusional and saw himself as “an Egyptian god”. She had returned home to find her cat missing and pictures that had been hanging on the wall destroyed.
The court granted a protection order requiring him to leave his mother’s house where he had been living and to keep 1,000ft from the property. He was also banned from possessing weapons and told to follow a mental health treatment plan that had been prepared for him involving medication.
The investigation into the incident is being handled by a specialist force out of Pierce county. One line of inquiry is likely to be why the protection order obtained by the mother appears not to have been served on her son, which is why deputies were initially drawn to the house on Tuesday morning.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
