When track coach Mike Smith sprinted toward the man, who appeared to be trying to break into a driver’s ed car, he thought it was a mischievous teen.
A hundred feet closer, the bar in the man’s hands turned out to be one of two guns. The man snapped “back off.” Smith left to call police, but he couldn’t let it go.
He followed the man to the playground at Clark Elementary School. A 100 yards seemed a safe distance, until the man unloaded a round at him.
Minutes later police would kill the man, Ronald W. Ficker, in a shootout.
This week, testimony from a formal inquest held by King County prosecutors revealed how deep a threat Ficker posed to the public as he roamed downtown Issaquah armed with over 900 bullets. Reports also reveal how deeply Ficker was disturbed in the weeks leading up to his death Sept. 24.
Less than a minute after Ficker shot at Smith, Issaquah Police Officer Laura Asbell, carrying an automatic rifle, ran up behind Smith and told him to leave.
She knew Ficker had shot his rifle once outside the Julius Boehm Pool and once somewhere near the Rainier Trail. There also were reports of Ficker pointing the guns menacingly at passersby.
As Asbell took position behind a portable classroom, Ficker found a new target. King County Sheriff’s Deputy David Montalvo had parked his patrol car on the north side of the school. Without a rifle, he couldn’t return fire. It was too far for a shotgun blast.
Taking cover behind his car’s door jam and engine, he knew he was the only line of defense between the shooter and the Evans neighborhood. Even as rounds from Ficker’s guns ricocheted off the ground, Montalvo stood his ground.
One bullet hit a few feet from Smith’s track students. A mother rounded them into her car, and fled down Evans Street.
Ficker had taken cover in a deep drainage ditch that ran the length of the field. When his head bobbed above the surface, Asbell and two other pulled their triggers.
They knew it was an impossible shot – they were 100 yards away. If anything, it was cover fire. Ficker couldn’t be allowed to leave.
“He had numerous avenues of escape,” Asbell told the inquest jury Tuesday. “I felt if we were unable to stop him, he would kill other people.”
Officer Brian Horn, trained in special ops, arrived a moment into the firefight. Minutes earlier, he had been directing traffic at a farmers market.
Like the three other officers, his commands to stop were interspersed between his gunfire.
“I don’t remember yelling, but I was told I was yelling quite profusely,” he recalled. “The training kicks in.”
A bullet struck a couple feet from Horn’s head. He warned Asbell, and they continued to fire, whenever Ficker’s head appeared above the berm.
Eventually Ficker stood up to run. He was a clear shot and all four officers fired. Ficker tripped and fell, but was still moving, perhaps to his gun. They fired some more, and Ficker was dead.
It wasn’t until an armored vehicle, duly named the Peacekeeper, a helicopter and a sniper arrived that the police moved across the field to Ficker’s body.
In the days following the shooting, police found Ficker’s home, which was once orderly, in disarray. It had a great deal of rotting food and 10 empty half-gallon Vodka bottles.
When police later interviewed Ficker’s brother, he said he was mentally unstable and spent too much time alone. He also thought Ficker had been going through a breakdown that week.
Ficker had left a note for his family, “in case something happens.” He had plans to turn his home and land into a floating rock, Atlantis. The hand scribbled notes included diagrams for construction. Police found them in his car and a bank lock deposit box.
This wasn’t his only reference to Atlantis. Five days before the shooting, Ficker logged onto a blog about hearing voices and posted a few comments.
“If you hear voices, you are not sick. You are a solder[SIC] for God!”
He then added a second note, “Well my Solders [SIC], it is ending. We will be god Solders in heaven on First Class Atlantis War Birds.”
Police first encountered Ficker on Sept. 15, when he visited the police station with a pistol on his hip. He told the officers that he had a machine that made energy for free, and that demons were attacking him.
Since Ficker hadn’t done anything illegal or threatening, police asked for his gun, which he surrendered, and walked him out to his car.
They didn’t see him again, until Officer Asbell found him refilling his car with gas on an I-90 off ramp on Highlands Drive Sept. 24. Because of his agitated behavior and the number of knives he had on him, she filed a report that morning.
When she heard a call over the radio about a man walking through town with guns, she said she knew it was him.
Later during testimony in the inquest, Horn would tell jurors that he has been on the force for 17 years and that Ficker’s actions were the most dangerous he’s experienced so far. “I had no question that he had the means, the opportunity and the will to kill us.”
Officer Laura Asbell gives testimony at a inquest into a shooting incident that occurred Sept. 24. Police killed a man who posed a public threat. BY CELESTE GRACEY, ISSAQUAH & SAMMAMISH REPORTER
Officer Brian Horn explains where he set up a command post before engaging a shooter that threatened the public Sept. 24. The four officers involved in the shooting gave testimony at a formal inquest May 22. BY CELESTE GRACEY, ISSAQUAH & SAMMAMISH REPORTER
Officer Laura Asbell takes questions from a King County prosecutor at an inquest into the shooting of a man who posed a threat to the public. BY CELESTE GRACEY, ISSAQUAH & SAMMAMISH REPORTER
Police Chief Paul Ayes looks on as Officer Laura Asbell gives testimony at a police inquest May 22. BY CELESTE GRACEY, ISSAQUAH & SAMMAMISH REPORTER
Officer Brian Horn watches on as a King County prosecutor enters evidence into the police inquest into the Sept. 24 shooting in Issaquah. BY CELESTE GRACEY, ISSAQUAH & SAMMAMISH REPORTER
