Pierce County deputy, 25, killed while rushing to aid fellow deputies
Pierce County WA December 22 2019
A Pierce County sheriff’s deputy was killed in a crash early Saturday while rushing to help deputies who were fighting with a suspect at a home south of Tacoma, the sheriff’s department reported.
“In great sadness we report that Deputy Cooper Dyson was killed in a collision while on duty, as he rushed to aid fellow deputies who were being assaulted by a domestic violence suspect,” the department’s announced in a tweet.
Around 3 a.m., deputies responded to a 911 call that a child had been attacked in a home on 113th Street South in Parkland, according to the sheriff’s department. The 911 caller reported multiple weapons in the home, the department said.
Shortly after two deputies arrived, they radioed for help, saying the suspect was attacking them and they needed backup, according to the statement.
Dyson, 25, was the first to respond. His car was headed west on 112th Street “at a high rate of speed” when it left the road, said Sgt. Ed Troyer, the department’s spokesman. The car rolled multiple times and burst into flames, Troyer said.
At 3:10 a.m., a passerby called 911 to report that a sheriff’s vehicle had crashed into a commercial building in the 1300 block of 112th Street East. Deputies responded and found Dyson dead, Troyer said. No one else was hurt.
“He was on a straight-away and there were no other cars on the road,” Troyer said. “But it was really pouring down rain and there was a lot of water on the roadway. It’s very possibly that that was a contributing factor.”
State Patrol was still conducting an investigation of the accident scene Saturday afternoon, Troyer said.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the other deputies were hurt in the domestic violence call.
Dyson had been with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department since 2018, the department said. He was married with a 2-year-old child. His wife is expecting a baby daughter in two to three weeks, Troyer said, his voice cracking.
“We love him,” he said.
“This is a tremendously sad loss,” Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said in a statement. “Our deputy was responding to help other deputies in a dangerous domestic violence situation. It is another hard reminder of the dangers and difficulties our deputies face.”
In a Facebook post about Dyson’s death, the department noted Dyson’s loss is “especially painful,”, as it occurred 10 years to the day since Deputy Kent Mundell and Sgt. Nick Hausner were shot while responding to a domestic violence incident near Eatonville. Mundell later died.
This is the first motor-vehicle death of a Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy since 1941.
