Trans Woman Prematurely Blamed for Deputy Wounded During Eviction

Eucy, who died by suicide in Ballard, WA, was prematurely blamed for injuries sustained by a law enforcement agent at the scene, before ballistics data was released.

by Evan Urquhart

UPDATE: On Friday evening Washington police released a statement stating that ballistic testing showed the shots fired at Officer Easterly did match the gun recovered from Eucy.

The Washington Examiner today spread misinformation about an incident in King County, Washington where a trans woman died by suicide, and a deputy was wounded. “Transgender socialist shoots officer during eviction,” claimed the Examiner’s headline, but in truth it was not yet known how Detective David Easterly sustained the torso wound that resulted in his being rushed from the scene for emergency surgery.

According to the Seattle Times, the incident involved three deputies who were serving a final eviction notice on a trans woman who went by a single name, Eucy, this past Monday, March 20. According to investigators it is believed that all three deputies discharged their weapons, and it remains unclear what initiated the gunfire. What was clear was that at the end of the incident Eucy was dead, her death had been ruled a suicide by the local authorities, and one of the three deputies, detective David Easterly, was seriously injured.

Mainstream news sources were scrupulously careful to avoid saying how Detective Easterly incurred his injuries. Three possibilities were available: Easterly could have injured himself accidentally, Easterly could have been caught by friendly fire from one of the two other deputies, or Eucy could have fired at Easterly and wounded him before killing herself. There was no reporting to support one interpretation over the others.

Of course, hewing carefully to the facts isn’t the Washington Examiner’s style. The conservative tabloid instead claimed, without evidence, that Eucy shot Easterly. The Examiner’s story did not claim to have any special knowledge of the events that led them to this interpretation, instead linking to mainstream accounts that make no claims as to the exact cause of Easterly’s injury. (The Examiner’s coverage also made much of the fact that Eucy was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.)

screenshot from the Washington Examiner

None of the mainstream accounts include the words “accident” or “friendly fire,” and of course Assigned has no more special knowledge of events than the Examiner did. That being said, an incident where a suspect seriously wounded a law enforcement agent and was then allowed to retreat unharmed and then kill herself seems unusual enough that alternative explanations should be on the minds of anyone who wants to understand the full range of scenarious that could result in this fact pattern.