DA Announces Decision for Bail Bondsman Who Shot Suspect's Armed Mother

The Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office in Tacoma, Washington announced Friday that a bail bondsman will not face charges for fatally shooting the armed mother of a man he was trying to take into custody.

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Police said the bondsman was looking for 60-year-old Kathryn New’s son after he failed to show in court on charges of malicious mischief and violating a no-contact order. When the bondsman and two colleagues went to New’s home in their search for the 30-year-old man on April 13, they weren’t the only ones armed.

The Prosecutor’s Office gave this account of the shooting:

As the bondsmen detained the son, New yelled for them to leave and grabbed a pistol that she pointed at one of them. That agent told her to drop the gun at least 10 times, and she did lower the weapon.

But another bondsman then shocked New with a stun gun. The man she’d pointed her pistol at earlier told investigators she raised the gun again, prompting him to fire twice.

New was transported to a local hospital where she later died from her injuries.
The bondsman who fatally shot New is 45 and resigned from his job as a deputy from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department six years ago amid an internal investigation.
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One comment on an article in the News Tribune read, “That’s BS, when did it become illegal to protect yourself in your own home. The bondsman and his colleagues need to be brought up on cages not dismissed because he once was a failed deputy.”

However, the prosecutors didn’t file charges because they knew they couldn’t counter the bondsman’s self-defense claim if the case ever made it to trial. The woman wasn’t defending her home, she was trying to prevent her son from being held accountable for his actions.

What do you think – did the prosecutor’s office get it right?

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