Olympia stepbrothers were retreating at time of shooting, attorney says

The bullet wounds two stepbrothers received during a confrontation with an Olympia police officer supports the idea that they were retreating, not fighting, according to an attorney.

“The evidence doesn’t support the attack with a skateboard,” David Beninger told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. Beninger is the attorney for Bryson Chaplin, 21, and Andre Thompson, 24. Both were confronted by Officer Ryan Donald after attempting to steal beer.

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Donald said he was being attacked with a skateboard at the time of the shooting. However, the injuries the brothers sustained were mostly in the back, according to Beninger. That includes a bullet that is lodged against the spine of Chaplin, causing paralysis.

There is not enough information yet for Beninger to know the distance the brothers were from Officer Donald, he said. They were not moving toward the officer at the time of the shooting, he added.

Dori asked, if the brothers were close enough to the officer when they decided to turn and run, couldn’t they swing a skateboard as they turned?

Beninger seemed to skirt the question.

“We’re trying to get the officer’s version of events,” he told Dori. That includes where the skateboard were located.

The “physical evidence supports a retreat, not an attack,” Beninger reiterated.

During his conversation with Dori, Beninger continued to refer to the brothers as boys. They are not boys, Dori pointed out. They are men who tried to steal beer and then threw it at a store clerk.

They are “folks suspected of petty, under-$20-shoplifting” that were tracked down and shot, Beninger said. The fact that an alleged “petty” crime turned into a shooting is “way out of proportion,” he added.

Dori agreed. There’s no reason for someone to be shot and paralyzed over shoplifting.

However, if someone was willing to throw a case of beer at a store clerk, would it be reasonable to believe they might be willing to swing a skateboard at an officer?

“These are all things that are conclusions … Trying to get the evidence to lead us to the right results,” Beninger told Dori.

People can draw conclusions over what they saw in the store surveillance video.