Stanwood Chief Is Asked Again To Draw His Gun

STANWOOD - Bob Kane left the heat of Scottsdale, Ariz., to get away from situations like this.

Little did he know he'd once again be faced with a weaving suspect and a waving gun, weighing a fellow officer's life against that of one of the citizens he was sworn to protect. In sleepy Stanwood, population 2,065, of all places.

Yesterday he shot Glenn R. Graves, 21, who, appearing drunk and irrational, stood in the middle of Stanwood's main road and repeatedly pointed a revolver at himself and five police officers, Kane said.

Kane said he fired his 9mm semiautomatic handgun as Graves appeared to be aiming his .41-caliber Magnum revolver at another Stanwood officer. Graves fell to the ground and his own weapon discharged. He died at the scene.

The Snohomish County sheriff's office and Stanwood police are conducting separate investigations into the shooting.

Elliott Woodall of the Sheriff's Department said that it appeared Kane's shot passed through Graves' arm, striking him in the chest. Woodall said the bullet from Graves' own pistol struck him in the head.

Sheriff's office detectives completed their investigation last night and will forward their findings to the Snohomish County Prosecutor's Office, which will determine whether the shooting was justified or not, Woodall said.

Snohomish County Medical Examiner Dr. Eric L. Kiesel late yesterday afternoon ruled that Graves died from the "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head." The autopsy and evidence collected at the scene were consistent with Graves fatally wounding himself, Kiesel said.

Ten years ago, as a sergeant in Scottsdale, Kane was one of several officers who shot a drunken man who had exchanged gunfire with an officer. It was never determined who fired the fatal shot, according to Scottsdale police Capt. Page Decker.

Kane left Scottsdale a year and a half later to take the chief's job in Stanwood, where he sought a more peaceful environment for himself and his family.

"This is not what police work is about," Kane said yesterday as he began an administrative leave that will continue until the investigation ends. "Most of the time, officers go out of their way to keep people from getting hurt.

"But it became very apparent to me that he was going to shoot the officers. He wouldn't stop walking. When he saw an officer, he'd walk forward with the gun cocked to his head, demanding to be shot. He said he was going to go into a home and then they'd have to shoot him."

Graves, who lived with a teenage sister and had prior criminal contacts with police, had been escorted home by police about 1:45 a.m. and apparently had been drinking, Kane said. He was found waving the gun outside a business complex in the 9800 block of Highway 532.

Kane plans to put himself through therapy, not because he seeks it personally but because departmental rules require it. He's the first in this situation: There's no record of a Stanwood officer firing in the line of duty before.

Residents talking over "the excitement" yesterday knew little about what happened but rallied around the chief nonetheless.

"Bob Kane is real well-liked," said Dan Whelan, who moved from Seattle a year ago and runs the Stanwood Pub & Grill.

Julie Sande owns the Cookie Mill across Highway 532 from the shooting; her sister runs the real-estate agency near where the man fell dead. "This is a tragic thing for Stanwood," Sande said. "We're in the country here, and that type of thing doesn't happen."

The city's last murder was in 1982.