LONGVIEW, Wash. — A Seattle man is dead following an exchange of gunfire with Longview police on Saturday, according to investigators, the fatal culmination of an apparent drug overdose and car chase through town.
According to the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office, county dispatch received a call around 2 p.m. Saturday reporting that a man was passed out in his vehicle in the drive-through line of Minami Teriyaki in Longview. Staff were unable to rouse the man.
Medical crews responded to the scene and administered the overdose reversal drug Narcan, bringing the man back to consciousness. Then, the sheriff's office said, the man became aggressive and threatened the medical staff before driving away, "showing symptoms of impairment."
Officers from the Longview Police Department responded to the area and found the suspect's vehicle, an orange Dodge Challenger, near 15th Avenue and Hudson Street. They tried to perform a traffic stop, but the suspect drove away, "running a red light, driving at high speeds, slamming on his brakes, and putting the vehicle in reverse."
The Longview officers tried to use a Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT), but weren't able to stop the suspect initially, the sheriff's office said. They finally blocked him in near 19th Avenue and Florida Street.
At that point, the sheriff's office said, the suspect pulled out a handgun and fired multiple shots, striking an officer's patrol vehicle. Three Longview officers returned fire, hitting the man.
The sheriff's office said that officers rendered first aid, but the suspect died at the scene. No officers were injured in the exchange.
Kayla Rutherford lives nearby the scene of the shooting in Longview. She and her husband heard sirens and saw a flurry of police vehicles going by, followed by the sounds of gunfire.
“We heard the gunshots and then we come out the front door and we come down to about here," Rutherford said, demonstrating where she was, "and I look over and there’s a police man on top of the dude performing chest compressions ... and I started praying for the cops and for him to be okay, because I was raised that way, to pray for people regardless of what they’ve done in life.”
The Lower Columbia Major Crimes Team responded to take charge of the investigation. They identified the suspect as 30-year-old Louis Earl Johnson Jr. of Seattle.
“His Challenger was ... the front part was actually resting in my neighbor's yard right there in front of the tree. He hit the curb hard enough he broke off a part of his rim,” Rutherford said. “It looks like he was going so fast that he like burned the street”
Johnson was unlawfully in possession of a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, according to investigators, with a matching holster on his hip. The gun did not have a serial number and the sheriff's office said that it was an illegally-made "ghost gun."