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Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Police fatally shoot Bellevue man at baby shower
By Karen Gaudette
Seattle Times Eastside bureau
Police don't know what motivated a 19-year-old Bellevue man they fatally shot Sunday night to crash a baby shower armed with a pit bull, knife and handgun.
Bellevue police say the man threatened partygoers and later pointed the gun at police.
Reginald Coleman died of multiple gunshot wounds at Harborview Medical Center shortly after officers confronted him in the back yard of a home in Bellevue's Crossroads neighborhood and fired several shots in self-defense, said Officer Kyle Woodruff.
No one else was injured.
"We don't know his motivation for being there," Woodruff said. "It appears to be one of those freak incidents."
Police say they've found no known connection between Coleman and the roughly 30 adults and children gathered to celebrate an upcoming birth.
Coleman had an extensive criminal background, including charges for assault and theft.
At 9:19 p.m. a woman called 911 from a house in the 800 block of 164th Place Northeast, Woodruff said. Through a translator, the woman told a police dispatcher that a man had arrived uninvited to the party and was threatening people with a knife and hitting children inside the house.
Officers arrived, confronted Coleman, then fatally shot him after he pointed a .38-caliber revolver at two of them, Woodruff said.
Both officers, whose names have not been released, were placed on administrative leave, a routine action in an officer-involved shooting. Both men joined the Bellevue department in 2002.
Most witnesses spoke Spanish, Woodruff said, so investigators brought in translators to help with interviews.
The cul-de-sac of modest homes shadowed by evergreens was quiet yesterday afternoon.
A neighbor who declined to give her name said her family heard music from the party then heard a series of explosions that sounded like firecrackers. It wasn't until she saw the news yesterday that she learned it was gunshots, she said.
The last shooting involving Bellevue officers was in January 2004, when a 49-year-old Kirkland man, armed with a handgun, attempted to rob a pharmacy. The man was shot as he pointed his gun at officers who had chased him into a Kirkland drugstore. He was taken into custody.
The last fatal shooting was in August 2001, when a Bellevue officer shot and killed a 24-year-old man after responding to a domestic-violence call at the Palisades Apartments in the 13600 block of Northeast 12th Street.
