A deadlock at a rural home outside Elma ended Wednesday with a 13-year-old boy in custody after an officer fired a single shot at him and missed, and after officers brought him down with less lethal munitions. The Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office said the boy sustained minor injuries and was taken to a hospital.
The episode began when a man called 911 to report that his son, who is autistic, had lost control inside the house and was swinging an axe at doors and walls. The caller told dispatchers the boy had also threatened to break into a safe and take out a gun. Everyone else in the residence made it outside before deputies arrived.
Deputies from the sheriff’s office and officers from the Elma Police Department kept their distance and opened negotiations while the boy remained inside, believed at that point to be holding the axe. He then armed himself with a bow and arrows and stepped outside, aiming at the officers gathered in front of the house. Aberdeen and Montesano police, along with Washington State Patrol troopers, arrived as backup.
According to the sheriff’s office, the boy let loose several arrows toward the officers and at a police drone flying overhead. One officer then discharged his service weapon once but did not strike him. Negotiations went on for several more minutes before an officer and a deputy fired less-lethal rounds that hit the boy and brought the confrontation to an end. He is expected to be booked into the Grays Harbor County Juvenile Detention Center on multiple counts of first-degree assault once he is discharged from the hospital. Reports go on that no one got seriously hurt, and the agency apologized to the neighbours before moving them out of their homes for a temporary period.
