Kirkland police say an officer shot and killed a man who was threatening to harm or kill a toddler he was holding early Saturday morning in a wooded area near Interstate 405.
Officers found the man with an 18-month-old while responding to reports of a disturbance near Dania Furniture on 116th Street in Kirkland shortly before 6:30 a.m., according to the Kirkland Police Department. They were able to speak with the man for about an hour in a wooded area nearby as he tightly held the child.
However, the man’s actions toward the toddler grew more intense, and the police department said an officer was forced to shoot the suspect to “prevent immediate harm to the child.”
The man was pronounced dead at the scene. The child was medically evaluated as a precaution.
The police department has asked the King County Sheriff’s Department to investigate the incident.
This is the second shooting by a police officer in the Puget Sound region in one day. A Tacoma police officer shot an armed man around 4 a.m. outside the Northwest Detention Center, a holding facility for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The man had a rifle and was throwing incendiaries at the building, Tacoma police said.