What Happened

Early on Tuesday, April 28, 2026, Stevens County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to a reported burglary in progress on North Suncrest Drive in the Suncrest neighborhood of Nine Mile Falls, Washington. According to the Spokesman-Review, the homeowner had called dispatch after seeing video of an intruder breaking into the garage.

When deputies entered the home, they "were immediately met with gunfire," the Spokesman-Review reported. One deputy was struck twice in the upper chest and shoulder area. He returned fire and was extracted from the home, according to the paper.

The deputy had surgery that morning. A sheriff's office dispatcher said he was expected to recover. On Thursday, April 30, he was released from the hospital and escorted home by a procession of law enforcement vehicles, the Spokesman-Review reported.

Officers later sent a drone into the home and found the suspect, a 66-year-old man, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Washington State Patrol is the lead investigating agency.

What is not public: exactly where each round struck, whether armor was involved, what aid was given, how and by whom the deputy was moved out of the house, and how he was transported.

The Lesson

This is a general principle, not a finding about this response.

Most officer-down training is built around the limb wound and the tourniquet, and for good reason. But upper chest and shoulder wounds sit in areas where a tourniquet does nothing. The shoulder and armpit are junctional areas: bleeding there has to be controlled with wound packing and firm, sustained direct pressure. The upper chest raises a different problem: breathing. The Joint Trauma System's Wartime Thoracic Injury CPG states that the initial management for an open chest wound is "placement of a vented chest seal," and that "clinical suspicion of tension pneumothorax requires rapid treatment." That second part is a clinician-level skill; for patrol, the job is to seal the wound, watch the casualty's breathing closely, and get him to someone who can do more.

The second point is extraction. A deputy hit inside a structure, with the threat still in the building, can't be treated where he fell. Civilian TECC guidance puts threat mitigation and moving the casualty to safety first in its Direct Threat Care phase, with major bleeding control as the one intervention worth doing under fire. Full assessment (the MARCHE sequence of major bleeding, airway, respirations, circulation, head injury and hypothermia) happens once rescuers and the casualty are out of the line of fire. That means the team entering a house should already know who drags, who covers and where the casualty collection point is.

The military TCCC guidelines say the same in a combat context. They are background for civilian law enforcement, not a rulebook, but the order of operations carries over: threat, bleeding, then everything else.

What Your Agency Should Do Now

  • Put chest seals and packing gauze in every patrol kit, not just tourniquets, and train on them with an armor carrier on.
  • Practice junctional pressure on the shoulder and armpit, where no tourniquet will help and a rescuer may need both hands and body weight.
  • Rehearse extraction from a doorway or hallway with a casualty in full kit, including the hand-off to EMS at a set point outside.
  • Brief a casualty collection point before entry on any call where the team is going inside, even a burglary.

Sources