SHERIFF DESCRIBES BRAWL WITH DEPUTY AS \u2018LIFE-AND-DEATH\u2019
\nBy Jane Braxton Little Bee Correspondent
\nPORTOLA \u2013 A Plumas County sheriff\u2019s deputy shot and killed a patient at Eastern Plumas District Hospital in a violent confrontation that moved from the acute-care section into the hospital lobby, officials said Monday.
\n\u201cIt was an all-out, life-and-death struggle that resulted in the officer resorting to deadly force,\u201d said Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood.
\nThe patient, a 53-year-old man, became disruptive early Sunday \u2013 hours after checking in with an unspecified medical complaint \u2013 and barricaded himself in a room adjacent to the nurses\u2019 station, Hagwood said.
\nHagwood said the patient then began making preparations for \u201can assault,\u201d fashioning upper-body protection out of a mattress pad and lower-body protection with leg braces and rubber boots.
\nThe deputy who responded at 1 a.m. engaged in a 10-minute struggle with the patient, who attempted to take his Taser, baton and firearm. At one point, the patient gained enough control of the gun to discharge a round that nearly struck the deputy, Hagwood said.
\nWhen the officer regained control of his gun, the patient attempted to attack him with his baton. The officer shot multiple times, killing the patient at the doorway of the hospital, Hagwood said.
\n\u201cIt was a lengthy and incredibly violent encounter. It is my firm belief that had the officer not taken the action he took, there would have been multiple other victims,\u201d he said.
\nHagwood, who has not released the name of the victim pending notification of his family, described him as a six-foot, 250-pound Portola resident who has had previous encounters with law enforcement.
\nThe deputy involved, whose name is also being withheld, is \u201cone of the biggest, strongest and best-trained law enforcement officers in Northern California,\u201d Hagwood said.
\nHe has been placed on administrative leave during the investigation, which is being conductedbythestateDepartment of Justice in conjunction with Plumas County District Attorney David Hollister.
\nHagwood has invited a third investigation by the Butte County Sheriff\u2019s Department to demonstrate \u201cthat we are conducting our business in the most transparent, honest way possible,\u201d he said.
\nHospital staff on duty in the acute-care section when the altercation began included a registered nurse and nursing assistant. Another patient also was there.
\n\u201cObviously this was very traumatic to the staff,\u201d said Tom Hayes, hospital administrator, who called the deputy\u2019s assistance \u201cinvaluable.\u201d
\nThe shooting is the second officer-involved fatality in Plumas County in two years. A sheriff\u2019s deputy in June 2012 shot and killed a man threatening to go on a \u201cmurder spree\u201d at Evergreen Trailer Park near Quincy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SHERIFF DESCRIBES BRAWL WITH DEPUTY AS \u2018LIFE-AND-DEATH\u2019 By Jane Braxton Little Bee Correspondent PORTOLA \u2013 A Plumas County sheriff\u2019s deputy shot and killed a patient at Eastern Plumas District Hospital in a violent confrontation that moved from the acute-care section into the hospital lobby, officials said Monday. \u201cIt was an all-out, life-and-death struggle that resulted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ephc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}