13 Swat Raid Left Everett Woman Dead

EVERETT - The final portions of five civil lawsuits filed in connection with an accidental fatal shooting of an Everett woman during a 1992 Snohomish County SWAT-team raid were settled this week.

The cities of Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace reached settlements in two of the cases 10 days ago, and the paperwork was signed Wednesday, according to lawyers involved in the cases.

Snohomish County, Everett and Lynnwood settled their portions of the five cases earlier this year.

John Muenster, lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he could not disclose the amount of the settlements because of a confidentiality agreement.

The settlements close the book for the public entities involved in the 1992 raids on five Snohomish County families who police thought were involved in the robbery of a Loomis Armored Inc. truck. An armored-car guard was killed and a second was wounded in the 1991 robbery outside the Lynnwood Fred Meyer store.

Early in the morning of March 28, 1992, police SWAT teams simultaneously stormed five Snohomish County homes, arrested men at each of the homes and handcuffed the women, who were not considered suspects. A sixth male suspect was later arrested.

During one of the raids, at the Everett home of Larry and Robin Pratt, a sheriff's SWAT-team member, Anthony Aston, accidentally shot 28-year-old Robin Pratt, who was not a suspect in the case, as she ran to protect her daughter.

All six suspects were released from custody days later after some provided proof they were living out of state and others produced records indicating they were at work during the robbery.

Robin Pratt's family sued the city of Lynnwood and Snohomish County and received settlements of $3.4 million from the city of Lynnwood in April 1994 and $1.15 million from Snohomish County in late 1993.

On March 25, 1994, the other five men and their families each filed lawsuits alleging a variety of civil-rights violations, including arrest without probable cause and unreasonable force.

The lawsuits involved 18 people. They include Paul and Christie Pratt and their three children; Jacob and Brenda Blackburn and their two daughters; Raymond and Helen Blackburn and their daughter; James Blackburn, his wife, Gloria Burke, their daughter, her son and Shirley Earls, a renter; and Patrick Dickinson, who was not at home at the time of the SWAT raid but was arrested later at the Mountlake Terrace Police Department.

Among the defendants in the cases, in various combinations, were Snohomish County, Lynnwood, Everett, Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds, along with various law-enforcement officials.

"There has been a full release without admission of liability," said Mark Bucklin, a Seattle attorney acting on behalf of Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds. He would not disclose the amount of the settlements.

Mountlake Terrace was named in the lawsuits filed by both Patrick Dickinson and the James Blackburn family. Edmonds was named in the James Blackburn case. Both plaintiffs also named the city of Lynnwood in their lawsuits and settled those claims in June for an undisclosed amount.

The Jacob Blackburn family and the Raymond Blackburn family both settled their cases with Lynnwood and Everett in May and June, Muenster said.

Paul Pratt and his family also settled with Lynnwood and with Snohomish County in April. Al Gehri, a Snohomish County deputy prosecutor, said the county paid $51,000 in that case.