Townsfolk Grieve After Officer Dies Suspect In Critical Condition After Shootout

Flags are flying at half-staff and black ribbons are flying from car antennas as people here try to cope with what is believed to be the first fatal shooting of an Omak police officer.

“It’s one of those things that happen somewhere else,” Mayor Walt Smith said. “They don’t happen here.”

Many people in this north-central Washington town of 4,000 knew the slain officer and are shocked, the mayor said. And the small, close-knit law enforcement community is particularly stunned.

“You get hurt arresting people, but nobody gets shot,” said Marvin Kruger, the city animal control officer and a police reservist.

Smith said cities all over the state called with condolences and police officers were dispatched from as far as Wenatchee to fill in for the Omak department’s 11 surviving officers - who got little sleep after the Wednesday night shooting.

Officer Mike Marshall, 43, died at a Seattle hospital about five hours after being shot in the head by a suspect who created a disturbance at a local motel.

Another officer, Don Eddy Jr., 36, returned fire and was himself shot in the thigh while subduing the critically wounded suspect.

Eddy was expected to be released Thursday evening from Mid-Valley Hospital in Omak even though a bullet passed through half the length of his thigh before lodging in his hip.

The suspect, Juan D. Gonzalez, 40, was in critical condition Thursday with a bullet wound in the chest. He was under guard in the intensive-care unit of Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.

Okanogan County Undersheriff Mike Murray said Gonzalez is expected to recover and stand trial for murder. He will be arrested when his condition improves, Murray said.

The shootout occurred at the Stampede Motel, which is named for the rodeo that draws thousands of people to Omak every summer. Motel owner Claudia Burwell was watching “Law and Order” on television when it happened.

Burwell said a woman who was living at the motel called and asked her to shoo away an ex-boyfriend who was outside the woman’s room.

Burwell said she knew Gonzalez because he had previously stayed at the motel. She said he was a “quiet, shy, retiring type of person” when he stayed alone several months ago. Later, the woman moved in with him and the two sometimes fought before he moved out, Burwell said.

After that, she said, Gonzalez occasionally got drunk and returned to harass the woman. Even so, Burwell said he didn’t seem violent when she had to “chase him off.”

“I wasn’t scared of him,” she said. “I don’t even know why I called the cops last night. Just an intuition or something.”

Intuition and the fact that he kicked the motel, called her “filthy names” and threatened to kill her, Burwell said. Still, she said she never would have suspected he had a gun.

When Eddy and Marshall arrived and confronted Gonzalez, Burwell said she approached to explain why she called the officers. She said Marshall thanked her and, when he turned toward Gonzalez, “Juan pulled his hands out of his pockets and both hands were full of guns.”

Burwell said she “let out a very nasty swear word” and ran for cover. As she rounded the corner of the motel, she said she looked back and saw Marshall trying to reason with Gonzalez.

He said, “Hey, man, you don’t need to do this. Just calm down and take it easy,” Burwell recalled.

At that point, she said, other officers were arriving. She heard a gunshot and ran again, without knowing whether anyone had been hit.

“I never saw Mike fall,” Burwell said. “I heard that pop, and whirled and was gone.”

Undersheriff Murray said the Sheriff’s Department, which is handling the investigation, hasn’t sorted out all the details yet. But he said Eddy shot Gonzalez in the chest with his 9mm semiautomatic pistol and Gonzalez ran into an alley before Eddy could tackle him.

Murray said Gonzalez dropped one of his two small-caliber pistols when he was shot. Eddy was attempting to handcuff the suspect when Gonzalez shot him with the second gun. Despite his injury, Eddy overpowered Gonzalez and handcuffed him before other officers arrived, Murray said.

Sheriff Jim Weed said police in Omak and nearby Riverside had several previous contacts with Gonzalez. His Okanogan County record includes a 1995 conviction for third-degree child rape and a conviction last March for drug possession.

Eddy has been with the Omak Police Department about 10 years. Marshall had been on the force a dozen years, and was a reserve officer before that. He is survived by a wife and two teenage children.

Burwell said she was acquainted with Marshall, and remembers him as “a very nice man, very friendly.”

“He wasn’t a hard-nosed cop,” she said. “He worked with people, and he will be sorely missed in this town, believe me. I don’t know of anybody who didn’t like him.

“Even people he arrested liked him.”

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