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.
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.
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.
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