3 Wounded In Shootout -- Standoff With Everett Police Ends In Apparent Suicide

EVERETT - Two Everett police officers and a bystander were injured in an exchange of gunfire at a housing project here before the suspect apparently killed himself.

After Everett police responded last night to a report of an armed man holding hostages in an apartment, the man broke a window and began firing at them.

One officer, 75 yards from the unit, was grazed in the back and a second was injured by a bullet fragment, Everett police said.

A 19-year-old Everett man was hit in the abdomen by a stray bullet as he looked out a window of an apartment almost a block away, police said.

Everett police Sgt. Harold Shoemaker said today that police believe the stray bullet was fired by the man in the housing project.

Police identified the gunman as Jerry A. Miller, 37, of Marysville. The Snohomish County medical examiner was to perform an autopsy today.

When police stormed the apartment almost three hours after the incident began, Miller was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head. No one else remained in the house.

The bystander, Alan Wayland, was listed in good condition today at Everett General Hospital. Everett Officer Jerry Mathis was treated for a flesh wound and released, and Officer Greg Lineberry, 23, was treated for a minor arm wound, police said.

``It's kind of sad when you're sitting in a house and you get shot by a bullet coming through the window,'' said Wayland's father, A.

Douglas Wayland, of Everett. ``It says a lot about society, doesn't it?''

Police were called to the apartment at 851 Locust St. in the Grandview Homes housing project in north Everett at about 6:15 p.m. As officers responded, Miller's father and brother told them he had just left a residence 10 blocks away and was armed and dangerous, said police spokesman Ken Murray.

``The first report was that the man was armed and was threatening to shoot anybody and anything in sight,'' Murray said.

Murray said five people were in the home with Miller initially, but four escaped before the shooting began.

Miller, armed with a .44-caliber Magnum with an 11-inch barrel, fired five shots out the window, Murray said.

Mathis, 46, was shot as he dived for cover, Murray said. Mathis, who has been with the department for eight years, fired two rounds from his revolver toward the suspect after he was shot, Murray said.

Lineberry, who has been with the department a year, was armed with 12-gauge shotgun and fired three rounds toward the man, Murray said. A third officer fired one round from a 9mm automatic, he said.

Sometime after the gunfire exchange, Miller apparently pointed the gun at a woman, the only remaining hostage, who was fleeing from the apartment. But he apparently turned the gun on himself and fired, Murray said.

Police did not enter the apartment for about two hours after the woman fled.

Neighbors said a companion of Miller's was in the apartment along with the residents, Rose and Jim Thompson. Apparently, the Thompsons' son, Mark, was also in the apartment.

Clay Swanson, 16, of Everett said Mark Thompson called him and asked to be picked up near his home because a man had a gun on his parents and another woman.

``He called the police first. He just asked me if I could come and pick him up,'' said Swanson, who arrived after police had escorted the youth away.

``I thought it was firecrackers at first, and then I saw a police officer crouched by my car,'' said Doris Cuneo, who lives across from the apartment.

After she heard the commotion, Debbie Bryant, who also lives across from the building where the shooting occurred, called her friend who lived there to see how she was.

She asked her friend, Rose Thompson, questions that Thompson could answer with yes or no, Bryant said.

``I said, `Is it true that . . . (the man) is there with a gun and going crazy?' And she said, `Yes.' `Did she know that the police were there?' and she said, `Yes, she was scared.'

``I could hear him yelling in the background and I said, `Is it time to get off?' and she said, `Yes' and I said `I love you' and I did.''

The elder Wayland said his son was visiting friends in the housing project when he heard the shooting. He went to the kitchen window of the home at 830 Pine St. to see what was happening.

````He turned around and said he had been shot and they thought he was kidding,'' said the wounded man's father. ``Then he bent over and fell down to the floor.''

By 10 p.m. residents of nearby housing-project units were beginning to return home, several hours after police had ordered them to leave.

Cuneo, however, had remained in her home throughout the incident.

``I went and sat down in the bathtub because I would have a few walls between me and the shooting,'' she said.