LACEY, WASH. – Deshirlynn Chatman was down the street from her cousin’s apartment complex on Thursday night when she heard what she thought were fireworks. Chatman, 24, had just picked up her children from a nearby day care and decided to visit her cousin, who lived at Tanglewilde Townhomes in Lacey.
The shots kept ringing, and Chatman knew something was wrong. A few seconds later, she turned onto Third Way and saw a group of police cars and neighbors starting to emerge confused from their houses.
She was directed by an officer to park her car in the lot and take her children inside .
Law enforcement officers who were members of the Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force had just exchanged fire and fatally shot Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, who was suspected of killing a 39-year-old supporter of a right-wing group at a protest in Portland. Reinoehl identified himself as a member of antifa, a far-left militant group active in Portland protests.
On his way home early Thursday evening, Zack Pletcher noticed a few cars near his apartment that weren’t normally there. He saw what he thought was an undercover cop at the corner of Third Way Southeast and School Street Southeast, another officer with binoculars across the street from the complex and two more farther down the street.
He didn’t think too much of it at the time and went inside .
Pletcher, 27, heard a series of loud booms.
“It’s a little late for fireworks,” he remembered thinking. He then heard 20 to 30 shots.
Four members of the team – two Pierce County sheriff’s deputies, one Lakewood Police officer and a state Department of Corrections officer – had fired multiple rounds in the exchange. The number rounds was not immediately clear Friday .
The team also included members of the U.S. Marshals Service, although marshals did not fire weapons in the exchange, Thurston County Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Brady said. They were attempting to serve an arrest warrant connected to a homicide, he added.
Brady said the department was not releasing the name of the person shot in the encounter, although a senior Justice Department official told the Associated Press it was Reinoehl, who was a suspect in the killing of Aaron “Jay” Danielson, 39. Danielson died after being shot in the chest Saturday night.
Reinoehl pulled a gun during the encounter on Thursday evening, said the official, who talked to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The Marshals Service later said in a statement the task force “attempted to peacefully arrest” Reinoehl.
“Initial reports indicate the suspect produced a firearm, threatening the lives of law enforcement officers,” the statement read.
“Task force members responded to the threat and struck the suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene.”
Although the area where the fatal incident took place is in Thurston County, just outside the city limits of Lacey, the Thurston County department was not aware the task force was in the area tracking Reinoehl until it started receiving reports of the shooting, Brady said.
“They were working on this case, and at some point their intelligence brought them to Thurston County,” Brady said.
Because it was not involved, the agency is leading the investigation into the officer-involved shooting being conducted by a critical incident investigation team from the region’s law enforcement agencies.
Bullets hit the mailbox, nearby cars, fences and even one family’s home.
Angel Romeo, 22, wasn’t home when the shooting occurred, but his wife, brother and young daughters were. He said his family heard fighting outside.
A bullet then came through their apartment, just missing Romeo’s brother and dogs.
“I got a call from my brother and came home immediately,” Romeo said. “I had no idea what happened.”
At first, Romeo thought it could be a fight that escalated. It wasn’t until he came home that he realized police officers fired.
After being ushered inside, Chatman went outside on her cousin’s balcony, which has a clear view of the mailbox and Reinoehl’s car. She saw a lifeless body lying near the mailbox.
Two officers tried to perform CPR, Chatman said, but at that point, she knew he was already dead.
Early Friday morning, neighbors wandered the streets, recounting what happened and looking at the damage.
Shattered glass and blood stains were scattered across the road.
Bullet holes remained in the mail box, along neighbors’ fences and in the side of Romeo’s home. He stood on his lawn with his daughters Friday, pointing out where the shots landed in his fence.
Cars near Pletcher’s house were hit, including one with a shattered window and his girlfriend’s with a damaged side door.
“We’re lucky all these cars were here,” he said. “Otherwise, it would’ve been in our apartments.”
Chatman said she didn’t know much about why Reinoehl was shot, only that he had shot someone else in Portland.
“People shouldn’t shoot people for who they support,” Chatman said.
She said she’s mostly worried about the neighborhood, especially since it has so many children, including one who she said was out playing at the time and could’ve been caught in the crossfire.
Her own children saw the caution tape and the damage.
She left Thursday night, only to return Friday to retrieve her car.
As she was leaving, her 5-year-old son covered his eyes: “Mommy, I can’t get the dead body out of my head.”
Late Friday, prosecutors in Oregon released court documents, which include a Portland police detective’s probable cause affidavit, that say parking garage video footage shows Reinhoel follow Danielson before the shooting.
In the video, Reinoehl sees Danielson and fellow Patriot Prayer member Chandler Pappas walk behind him on Southwest Third Avenue. Reinoehl walks into the garage, and as the two pass by, video shows Danielson “appeared to be holding a can in his right hand and what appears to be an expandable baton in his left hand.” Reinoehl steps out of the garage and follows as the men cross the street. Reinoehl then reaches toward “the pocket or pouch on his waistband.”
“The shooting occurs shortly thereafter and is not captured on the surveillance video,” the detective wrote.
The detective’s statement helped police obtain a warrant from a Multnomah County court on Wednesday for Reinoehl’s arrest that ended in the fiery exchange.
The Thurston County Coroner’s Office will be in charge of conducting Reinoehl’s autopsy. Coroner Gary Warnock said the examination will be conducted on Wednesday. He expects to be able to release details to the public on the cause and manner of death that day after the next of kin are informed.
The results of laboratory tests, however, likely will take one to two weeks, Warnock said.
Laurel Demkovich's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.
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