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Retired Navy doctor identified as man shot by police in Tukwila hotel
April 24, 2024 at 6:00 am Updated April 24, 2024 at 6:00 am
Sara Jean Green
The man fatally shot by Seattle police officers at a Tukwila hotel last week was a retired U.S. Navy physician who is tied to an address in Hansville, Kitsap County, records show.
Bruce Coval Meneley, 67, was identified Tuesday by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, which determined he died from multiple gunshot wounds and ruled his death a homicide.
The Seattle Police Department is the lead agency for the statewide Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Task force members were conducting a sting operation at the Double Tree Hotel in Tukwila to arrest a suspect who thought he was going to meet two young girls, ages 7 and 11, in a hotel room, according to an item posted Friday to SPD’s online blotter. Police also posted video footage from three officers’ body-worn cameras of the shooting.
Since 2019, cybertips to the task force about possible child sexual exploitation in the state have increased 250%, according to Seattle police. The national Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 36 million reports of suspected child exploitation in 2023, up from more than 29 million reports in 2021.
Seattle police Chief Adrian Diaz, in an introductory statement to the video, said the officers involved in the shooting are assigned to the department’s community response group.
“For our officers, these situations are dangerous, unpredictable and can escalate rapidly,” Diaz said. “We want to warn you what you are about to see is disturbing.”
The footage starts with the officers behind a closed hotel room door.
As the door opens, a man wearing jeans, a ball cap and a button-down shirt underneath an olive-colored jacket is seen standing in the hallway with his right hand across his chest, inside his jacket pocket. His face has been blurred in the video.
“Hey, Officer Thomas, Seattle P … ” one officer seems to say, but he doesn’t finish identifying himself as the man pulls a black handgun out of his pocket, the video shows. The officer advances with outstretched arms, grabs for the gun and appears to turn it toward the man before a shot is fired in the struggle.
“Gun!” the officer says, keeping hold of the man as the officers on either side of him pull their service weapons and repeatedly fire until the man is slumped on the floor. One of the officers can be seen removing a magazine from his gun and inserting a new one while another officer appears injured as he drags himself around the corner behind a short wall.
Fourteen seconds elapse between the door opening and the first officer — who by then had moved down the hallway — saying into his police radio, “Shots fired, shots fired, suspect down, help the officer.”
Officers Adam Fowler and Nick French were identified as the officers who opened fire, according to the blotter post. One of them suffered a graze wound to his leg, but it’s unclear who that was.
The officers have been placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated, which is typical in these cases.
Meneley’s shooting is the first shooting by SPD officers in eight months and the first fatal one in 23 months, the blotter post says.
His killing is also the first fatal shooting by officers in King County so far this year. There were four fatal shootings involving officers last year, two in Kent and one each in Bellevue and Federal Way, according to a Seattle Times database compiled with information from police, prosecutors and the medical examiner.
A spokesperson at Naval Station Kitsap said that service records are not available locally but no one with Meneley’s name shows up in its directory, and he does not have any active contact information in the database.
U.S. Department of Defense records show Meneley served from 1986 to 2016.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/retired-navy-doctor-identified-as-man-shot-by-seattle-police-in-tukwila-hotel/