Knife-bearing man whom Seattle officer shot charged with assault

A 55-year-old Seattle man was charged Wednesday with two counts of second-degree assault for allegedly threatening his husband and a Seattle police officer with large kitchen knives before the officer shot him.

Michael Uivary remains at Harborview Medical Center following the officer-involved shooting on Sunday afternoon outside the house on South Dearborn Street he shares with his husband, according to charging papers.

Uivary has no known criminal history, nor is there a history of domestic violence between the couple, who have been together for 17 years, the charges say. But Uivary does have a history of mental-health problems and suicide attempts and his husband has had Uivary involuntary committed in the past, charging papers say.

Uivary also takes medication for anxiety, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and sleep issues, according to the charges.

The officer who shot and wounded Uivary is identified in the documents as Sarah Velling.

Seattle Police Department spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said Velling has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an internal review of the shooting. He said she is a “relatively new officer” who has been on the force for about 18 months. Her age was not immediately available.

One focus of the investigation, which will be looked at by the SPD’s Force Review Board, will be Velling’s decision to fire her service weapon rather than attempt to subdue Uivary with a Taser, which she had on her utility belt. All Seattle police officers are required to carry at least one less-than-lethal weapon under a use-of-force policy adopted in 2013.

A judge has set bail for Uivary at $75,000. He was in serious condition Wednesday at Harborview, said hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg.

According to charging papers:

Uivary’s 52-year-old husband returned home Sunday after attending a friend’s out-of-town birthday party. He found Uivary lying on a couch with two pill bottles nearby containing Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, and a sleep aid similar to Ambien. He tried to wake Uivary, who was incoherent and slurring his words.

He asked Uivary if he was “intentionally taking the medication to overdose, and Michael admitted he had been taking a dose of each, every hour, for the past six hours.”

Uivary’s husband took the pills, but left the pill bottles behind. After waking sometime later, Uivary stumbled down the stairs, yelled at his husband to give the pills back and called him a thief. He went back upstairs, dressed, and then told his husband he planned “to drive himself into a tree and kill himself,” the papers say.

After a brief struggle, Uivary’s husband took Uivary’s car keys away from him and managed to grab a second set of keys. As the husband was on the phone with a 911 operator, Uivary grabbed a kitchen knife and followed his husband as he fled out the back door and around to the front of their house.

Uivary then threw the knife at his husband but it landed 6 to 8 feet away from him. As officers were arriving at the scene, Uivary went back inside and came out armed with a carving knife and a large bread knife, each with an 8-inch blade.

Uivary approached his husband and at least two uniformed officers while armed with the knives. One officer, who repeatedly yelled for Uivary to stop and put the knives down, placed her body in between Uivary and his husband as Uivary “continued to march toward her, a knife in each hand pointed at her.”

When Uivary was 5-to-6 feet “away from her and still advancing, the officer fired,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Christina Miyamasu wrote in charging papers.

The shooting was captured on the police dashboard camera.