Big crowd expected at Olympia City Council meeting after officer's shooting of 2 brothers

OLYMPIA -- The city of Olympia was expecting a big turnout at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, with some residents seeking more details of a police officer's shooting of two brothers last Thursday.

But investigators said it could be another six weeks before forensic evidence from the shooting gets back from a crime lab and their investigation is complete.

For the first time, detectives interviewed Olympia police officer Ryan Donald on Tuesday, who is under investigation for shooting brothers Andre Thompson and Bryson Chaplin.

But detectives said the details of what the officer said will not be released until the investigation is over.

“You have to have communication as a first step. People have to have the chance to find information,” said Olympia resident Robert, who asked that his last name not be used for this story.

Expecting a big turnout at the meeting, the city of Olympia brought in extra chairs for the public.

Detectives say surveillance video captured the brothers at a local Safeway before the shooting. A store employee called 911 reporting that one of the brothers tried to steal a case of beer.

"He stole a beer earlier and he tried to do it again; he threw the beer at me and hit my hand. He threw a case of beer at me, glass beer" the employee said.

Donald later spotted the suspects fitting the description not far from Safeway. When he stopped them to question, Donald radioed in that he was attacked.

“They assaulted me with a skateboard, I tried to grab his friend. They are very aggressive,” Donald said in his call into dispatch.

“It doesn’t matter if they assaulted him a lot, doesn’t matter if they had a knife. You don't jump straight to shooting,” Olympia resident Charlie Kruger said.

Kruger added that he is going to the City Council meeting to question the city's use-of-force policy.

“If this is a failing of training, that needs to be exposed,” Kruger said.

Other residents hope the brothers will tell their side of the story once they recover.

“I would like to hear from them and just ask them some honest questions -- Were you really going after this guy?” Robert said.

Detectives interviewed one of the brothers, Thompson, in the hospital the day he was shot. They said they hope to talk to him again and get Chaplin's side of the story as well.

The men's family declined to do an interview Tuesday, saying they have hired an attorney. Thompson is back home recovering from his gunshot wound. The family says Chaplin, who was shot multiple times, is still in the hospital.