PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) - Authorities on Saturday were still investigating an officer-involved shooting that left a man dead in the Lake Pleasant area north of Forks on the Olympic Peninsula.
The man was shot by one of two responding law enforcement officers during the Friday evening incident, Trooper Russ Winger, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, said Saturday in a phone interview.
The incident began around 5:15 p.m. with a welfare check but escalated into a confrontation and a standoff with the man, Winger said.
The man had a gun but Winger couldn’t say if he fired it or pointed it at the responding officers.
“Obviously, one of the officers felt that they needed to take deadly force on that,” he said.
The two responding officers involved, Officer Michael Gentry with the Forks Police Department and Sergeant Edwin Anderson of the Clallam County sheriff’s office, were both placed on paid administrative leave. Winger could not say which of the two had opened fire on the man.
Officers from the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office and the Port Angeles, Forks and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Police responded to the location.
The man’s name has not been released because authorities are having trouble notifying his next of kin, Winger said.
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Information from: Peninsula Daily News, https://www.peninsuladailynews.com
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