SELAH, Wash. -- After eight months of silence, the father of a Selah teenager who was shot to death by a Yakima police SWAT team spoke publicly Friday with questions about the way the standoff was handled.
Howard Nager said he decided to call the Yakima Herald-Republic after reading Friday morning that the shooting of his 18-year-old son, Ross, last May had been ruled by Yakima County Prosecutor Jim Hagarty as a justifiable use of deadly force.
Nager said he's hired an attorney.
"We are going to review the investigation in detail with our own experts, with the intent to show that proper procedures might not have been followed or followed to the extent they should have," he said, adding, "Procedurally it raises a lot of questions."
He did not say he was going to sue.
On Thursday, Hagarty issued a news release, announcing he had completed a review of the shooting based upon an independent investigation by the Washington State Patrol and concluded the two officers who fired shots had acted within state law that governs the use of deadly force.
The four-page announcement included previously unreleased details about the standoff the night of May 18 that culminated in the death of Ross Nager, a 2010 Selah High School graduate.
According to Hagarty, the standoff began shortly after authorities received a 911 call at 9:55 p.m. reporting a disturbance and shots fired at the Nager home in the 3900 block of Speyer Road in Selah.
Hagarty said a friend of Ross Nager told sheriff's dispatchers Nager was despondent over a breakup with his girlfriend and had armed himself with a shotgun. The friend said Ross Nager had fired the gun several times inside the house and everyone but his mother had fled the home.
The call led to a standoff, during which a Selah police officer at one point briefly spoke to the teenager by phone but was hung up on, according to Hagarty, who said the officer could hear a woman crying in the background. One of Ross Nager's friends reported receiving a text from Nager saying he had killed his mother and was going to kill himself.
Meanwhile, officers reported Ross Nager fired a shot through a window and that pellets from the shell were heard striking their squad cars and the driveway. They said Nager later emerged from the house with the shotgun to his head and, defying orders to drop the gun, fired a round in the air before retreating back into the house.
With the Yakima police SWAT team by now in position around the residence, the final events culminating in the fatal shooting began when Nager left the house through the garage and got into the family's GMC Yukon.
Moments later, two members of the SWAT team opened fire on him as he tried to maneuver the Yukon around the house and driveway, where various exit points were blocked by squad cars.
Hagarty said Sgt. Shawn Boyle was the first to fire, striking the Yukon a total of seven times on the hood and passenger side after he felt endangered by Nager's maneuvering in the SUV.
The final and fatal shots were then fired by Sgt. Jay Seely, who said he fired once when it looked like Nager was trying to exit the Yukon with a weapon in hand, then a second time after Nager began again trying to exit while still holding the weapon.
The shooting was the fourth of six involving local law enforcement last year -- five by Yakima police and one by police in Sunnyside. Three were fatal. It was the first fatal shooting by the SWAT team since it was formed in 1977.
In his comments Friday, Howard Nager described Hagarty's report and previous accounts of the shooting by authorities as inaccurate. Among other things, he disputed any contention that his wife had been held hostage by their son.
Ross Nager was an outgoing and happy teenager, his father said, adding that he's not disputing his son suffered a disastrous meltdown from his breakup with an older girlfriend. He also didn't dispute that his son had been drinking that day.
"I'm not disputing a lot of what's in there," he said, referring to Hagarty's report. "For the most part, it's accurate."
"But there's a lot of things that are inaccurate," he continued. "What's missing here is the opposite of what occurred -- what else could have been done (and) what else should have been done. Procedurally there was a lot of things that went badly in this process."
Howard Nager questioned whether police actions prior to the fatal shooting should have done more to de-escalate the standoff.
"I'm sure they have that training, but I'm not sure (that) action came through that evening," he said.
Yakima Acting Police Chief Greg Copeland defended the SWAT team's handling of the standoff, saying his officers "reacted to things Ross Nager was doing."
"The actions of the officers were driven by the actions of Ross Nager," he continued, adding, "I support our officers 100 percent."
Hagarty said his review was limited strictly to the use of deadly force, not whether the SWAT team followed proper procedure or used sound tactics.
Agreeing with Copeland's position on public pronouncements in the case, Hagarty said he was inclined to keep his comments brief in deference to a Howard Nager's grief.
"The SWAT people do what they do. I deal with the shooting part of it," he said, adding, "It's just unfortunate any time a young man loses his life. Just sad no matter how you look at it."
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