Three dead in shootings

SEATTLE – A traffic stop in the woods led to the shooting death of a U.S. Forest Service officer, a shootout in which a fugitive was killed and the discovery of a third gunshot victim at the home of the owner of a pickup truck he was driving, the Washington State Patrol said.

The FBI was investigating the death of USFS Officer Kristine Fairbanks, 51, a certified canine officer with 15 years in the forest service, and the other shootings in the Sequim area were being investigated by the patrol and Clallam County sheriff’s deputies, state Trooper Krista D. Hedstrom said Sunday.

Shawn M. Roe, 36, had three handguns and fired at least one shot before he died in a shootout with two deputies at a convenience store, Hedstrom said.

Roe was wanted by the Washington Department of Corrections for failing to show up at an August meeting with his probation officer. The probation officer had requested an arrest warrant, but Mason County Superior Court had not yet issued the warrant, Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis told the Seattle Times.

Roe was a convicted felon with “an active criminal history.” He was convicted in 2007 of unlawful imprisonment, a felony, and malicious mischief, a gross misdemeanor, Lewis said.

The third shooting victim was described only as a man in his 60s.

No one else was known to be hurt in the shootings, Hedstrom said.

All the shootings occurred on the northern Olympic Peninsula about 50 miles west of Seattle.

Hedstrom said the shootings Saturday began after Fairbanks called the patrol at 2:22 p.m. and said she had stopped Roe in an old Dodge van without license plates near the Dungeness Forks campground in Olympic National Park, roughly half a dozen miles south of Sequim.

When a dispatcher tried to contact Fairbanks with information on Roe, there was no response and troopers and a sheriff’s deputy were dispatched. The deputy arrived first, at 3:10 p.m., and found Fairbanks dead. Her police dog was unharmed in her vehicle.

Authorities found the van about 6:30 p.m., abandoned not far away in a densely wooded area.

At 9:30 p.m., Hedstrom said, a security guard at the Longhouse Market and Deli near the Seven Cedars Casino on U.S. Highway 101 east of Sequim alerted sheriff’s deputies that a man meeting Roe’s description was in the convenience store.

Two deputies arrived and told him to put up his hands as he came out of the store, but he drew at least one handgun and fired at least once before both deputies opened fire, Hedstrom said. Neither deputy was hit. Roe died at the scene.

Roe was carrying three handguns when he was shot and killed on Saturday, including Fairbanks’ service weapon, Hedstrom said. A fourth weapon, a long rifle, was found inside the pickup truck.

Investigators checked the registration of a white pickup he was seen driving when he arrived at the store, went to the house of the registered owner, located between the store and the campground, and found the body of a man who had been shot, Hedstrom said.