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Flags at half-staff Friday in honor of slain Tacoma police officer

This undated photo provided by the Tacoma Police Department shows officer Reginald “Jake” Gutierrez, who was shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence call Nov. 30 in Tacoma. (Tacoma Police Department / Associated Press)
By Dee Riggs Wenatchee World
This undated photo provided by the Tacoma Police Department shows officer Reginald “Jake” Gutierrez, who was shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence call Nov. 30 in Tacoma. (Tacoma Police Department / Associated Press)

TACOMA – Gov. Jay Inslee has directed that Washington state and U.S. flags at state agencies be lowered to half-staff Friday in memory of a Tacoma police officer killed in the line of duty Nov. 30.

Officer Reginald “Jake” Gutierrez was fatally shot as he tried to defuse a domestic dispute at the Tacoma home where Bruce R. Johnson and the woman believed to be his wife were living.

An 11-hour standoff followed. Johnson, who had held his two children hostage for much of the night and refused to surrender, was killed by a single shot from a marksman’s bullet.

Johnson was fired from his job at a local barbershop the morning of the incident, the barbershop owner told the News Tribune newspaper in Tacoma.