Updated 10 minutes ago...
http://thedailyworld.com/sections/news/local/shooting-reported-county-courthouse.html
Shooting reported at the County CourthouseA Grays Harbor Sheriff’s deputy was shot and a judge was stabbed at the Grays Harbor County Courthouse today, and the suspect is still at large, officials reported this afternoon.
A multi-agency team is coordinating a manhunt for the suspect, who identified himself as Michael Thomas, though Grays Harbor Undersheriff Rick Scott cautioned that they have no positive identity of the suspect.
Court staff reportedly felt the well-dressed man with a briefcase was acting suspicious on the second floor of the courthouse on Friday, and Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Deputy Polly Davin was sent to confront the man, Scott said. When Davin approached the man — who identified himself as Michael Thomas — just inside the entrance on the first floor, he reportedly attacked Davin with a knife or scissors. Judge David Edwards was walking down the courthouse stairs when he saw the altercation. Edwards struck the man, and the judge was stabbed or slashed, according to Scott.
Davin then reportedly tried to draw her firearm, but was knocked down. The man then took her gun and fired twice, striking Davin once in the shoulder. The man then fled the courthouse with Davin’s gun, Scott said.
The man is described as 5 foot 10 inches to 6 feet tall with light brown hair, slender and clean-shaven. He was wearing a blue dress shirt and black slacks and carrying a black briefcase.
Authorities had surrounded a house on Academy Street and reportedly put Montesano schools on lockdown. SWAT personnel deployed gas into the house, went in and did not come out with anyone in custody. Officials later reported there was no known connection between the suspect and the home.
There had been reports of a man named Michael Thomas being arrested in Thurston County, but police do not believe the man is the suspect in the courthouse violence.
Grays Harbor Community Hospital spokesman David Quigg listed Edwards and Davin as in satisfactory condition at the hospital. He could not elaborate on the nature of their injuries due to health privacy laws.
Aberdeen attorney Frank Franciscovich was having lunch down the street from the courthouse with another judge, District Court Judge Tom Copland, when he was called on his cell phone and told about the incident.
“I got a call on my cell phone to get him to the Sheriff’s Department lockdown,” Franciscovich said.
Franciscovich acknowledged the Grays Harbor courthouse does not have a metal detector, such as in the Thurston County Courthouse and the Lewis County Courthouse.
“The sign says, ‘No guns above the first floor,’ ” he said of the Grays Harbor facility.
Franciscovich said the response to the lockdown at the courthouse in the aftermath of the altercation was fairly orderly.
“I wouldn’t call it chaotic, although there were a lot of police, State Patrol, Sheriff’s officers. It seemed to be well-organized and everybody was doing their jobs,” he said.
All the county employees were taken to the Sheriff’s Office for lockdown safety.
Edwards was appointed to his post in 2007 by Gov. Chris Gregoire. Prior to that, he had been a partner at the law firm of Edwards & Hagen, P.S., for 13 years. He served in the Grays Harbor Prosecuting Attorney’s Office from 1974 to 1978, where he was the chief criminal deputy prosecutor for two years.
Davin is a former Daily World reporter who became a sheriff’s deputy in 1998. Davin was the first female detective at the Sheriff’s Office and most recently had been assigned to the case invovling the disappearance of Lindsey Baum in McCleary.
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