TACOMA — A Tacoma officer who shot and injured a homicide suspect after the suspect opened fire on police, killing a K-9, was justified in his actions, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office said Thursday.
Officer Nathan Reetz, 35, had been with the department two and a half years before he shot Dyrell Swinson Aug. 13, 2020.
“There was no reasonably effective alternative to shooting at Mr. Swinson, the active shooter,” according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
Swinson, 29, was wanted for allegedly killing a friend and fellow gang member the day before. After an officer tried to pull over Swinson’s vehicle, Swinson sped away and led officers on a brief pursuit before crashing his car and taking off running.
Several officers, including K-9 Ronja and her handler, did yard-to-yard searches in the area for Swinson. An officer spotted Swinson about 1:50 a.m. hiding beneath a vehicle and loudly called for him to come out.
When other officers in the area realized Swinson had been located, they began walking toward the officer to help.
“There was initially some confusion about where Mr. Swinson was hiding. Some officers were walking in the immediate vicinity of the Yukon SUV unaware that Mr. Swinson was underneath. Mr. Swinson began shooting in the direction of officers,” according to a letter Prosecuting Attorney Mary Robnett sent Monday to Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore.
Swinson allegedly opened fire on three officers walking by the parked car he was hiding beneath. Ronja, a 2-year-old German Shepherd and the department’s newest tracking dog at the time, was shot three times and later died at a veterinarian hospital. Her handler was struck by shrapnel.
Reetz returned fire, striking Swinson multiple times.
“Under an objective standard, given all the facts, circumstances and information known to PPO Reetz at the time, any similarly situated, reasonable officer would have believed that the use of deadly force was necessary to prevent death or serious physical injury to themselves, to other officers and to the public,” Robnett wrote in the letter explaining the justification for the police shooting.
A stolen 9 mm pistol was found beneath the car where Swinson was hiding.
Investigators said Swinson only stopped shooting at police because the gun malfunctioned after two live rounds were fed into the chamber.
Police were looking for Swinson because he was a suspect in the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Jake Red in a parking lot near South 64th Street and South Yakima Avenue.
Swinson believed Red was romantically involved with the mother of his children and confronted him about it twice that day. Although Red denied it, Swinson grabbed a gun from his car, “said words to the effect of, ‘I think you’re playing me,’ and then, without provocation, shot Red in the neck,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
Red was shot several times in the neck, back and stomach. He died at the scene.
Police said there was no evidence that Red was involved in a relationship with the mother of Swinson’s children.
Swinson invoked his Fifth Amendment right and declined to speak with detectives after his arrest.
He is being held on $2 million bail after pleading not guilty to second-degree murder, three counts of first-degree assault, harming a police dog and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.
In February, Swinson asked the court to let him represent himself at trial, which is scheduled for April.
He is a convicted sex offender with eight prior felony convictions, including sex trafficking of children, attempting to elude and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.
