The long standoff shut down several blocks around E Howell and Belmont
The off-duty King County Sheriff deputy who told police he had a shotgun and engaged in a 13-hour standoff with police inside his Capitol Hill apartment last week did, indeed, have a firearm in the unit.
Prosecutors say police found the weapon, ammunition, and a pepper spray canister inside the fourth-floor apartment of Berdon Parsons following the incident. The 30-year-old has been charged with three counts of third-degree assault for allegedly spraying pepper spray under a door as police officers attempted to contact him at the start of the Wednesday, May 30th standoff.
CHS reported last week on details from Seattle Police about the alleged domestic violence assault over a fight about groceries and sex that sparked the 13-hour standoff with the off-duty King County Sheriff’s deputy inside the Granada Apartments building.Neighbors told CHS it was typical to see Parsons’s Burien King County Sheriff’s vehicle parked near the Granada and another said they believed a person had moved into the unit with Parsons in recent months.
Parsons has served as a deputy with the King County Sheriff’s Office since 2015. Sgt. Ryan Abbott told CHS that Parsons is currently on administrative leave pending an unrelated investigation. Abbott said personnel on leave are typically relieved of any department issued firearms but may continue to possess personal weapons.
According to his resume, Parsons began working for the sheriff’s department after attending Bellevue Community College and Cal State Sacramento and is a Sergeant in the United States Army Reserve.
No charges have been filed for the alleged domestic violence assault that originally brought police to Parsons’s apartment.
According to facility records, Parsons remains held in King County Jail on $15,000 bail.
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It’s nice this wasn’t a black man holding a TV remote or anything but the entire incident strikes me as a gross over-reaction on the part of SPD and an opportunity for them to use military-style enter and takedown tactics. Of course the deputy is now charged with three felonies for spraying mace under a door. I guess if the entire SWAT team had been there he’d be charged with 12 felonies. Doesn’t seem like cool heads prevailed. I expect if they had just put a couple of cops outside his door and waited until he ordered a pizza things may have resolved without the explosives, the robot and an entire block cleared for the action.
The absolute fact that there is racial disparity in police-inflicted violence doesn’t change the fact that it’s good nobody died in this incident and that this white deputy is actually being charged with a crime of some sort for his assault. Your Monday morning quarterbacking is ridiculous and irrelevant.
Yo Max: The issue is proportionality. The question is should the act of spraying mace under your door crack get you flash-bang grenades, your door blown up and a robot in your apartment. Spraying mace under a door is just barely “assault” at all. The responding officers smelled something bad and they moved away. Were they “assaulted” ? Tough call. That’s why he’s charged with 3rd degree: equivalent to an unwanted touch to a bus driver. Maybe he was angry, maybe he was not acting so reasonably, but guess what, that’s not criminal. Are you going to hang shoplifters? How many doors get blown off by the cops in Medina?
Preach it brotha! Being that he’s gay I’m still on the fence on how I should feel about this one. I mean it would totally be easier to pick sides if he identied either as a cis white male or as a gender non-conforming womxn POC.
I’m going to guess that we don’t have all the facts, that stuff was going on that wasn’t released to the public.
Imagine the litany of charges this individual would’ve faced had they NOT been a member of the “law enforcement community”……assuming they were still alive!