A handful of Clark County Sheriff’s Office deputies had been calmly questioning John Gale outside his RV in the rain on Feb. 20, shortly after 1 a.m.
When one deputy said they needed to detain Gale — suspicious the 53-year-old may have sexually assaulted a woman — he suddenly reeled backward and pulled something from his waistband. Three deputies then opened fire. Gale died at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds to his torso.
The confrontation was recorded by the deputies’ body-worn cameras. The sheriff’s office compiled, edited and uploaded a 15-minute video on Thursday to reveal more details about the fatal encounter.
In the video, the sheriff’s office labels Gale’s object as a firearm. Outside investigators have said that they found a firearm “in proximity” to Gale that evening.
The deputies are not identified by their cameras in the video. However, investigators Thursday released the names of three deputies who opened fire: Deputies Forrest Gonzalez and Holly DeZubiria and Sgt. Tom Yoder.
Deputy Isaac Henrikson and Sgt. Jeff Ruppel witnessed the shooting, investigators said. All five deputies who were on scene are currently on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.
Investigators have been fact-finding in the days since the shooting and will ultimately send a report to a prosecutor, who will determine whether the deputies were justified to shoot and kill Gale.
Around midnight, according to the video footage, dispatchers received a 911 call asking to check on the caller’s mother staying at Gale’s RV in Brush Prairie, a community outside of Vancouver, Washington. The caller said her mother relayed she was “being held hostage,” and that there were “guns everywhere.”
Gale appeared to cooperate at first, the footage shows. He appeared to talk with deputies while standing in the rain and wearing a headlamp, their flashlights spotlighting him in the footage.
One deputy, who is not identified by name in the footage, talks with a woman at the scene. The sheriff’s office edited the footage to remove the sound of her speaking, purportedly to protect her privacy. The video states that she “describes being sexually assaulted” by Gale to the deputy.
When that deputy then told other deputies, “he needs to be detained,” Gale can be seen jolting backward and reaching into his waistband.
After deputies opened fire, they administered first aid, the footage shows. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The woman at the scene was taken to the hospital “for evaluation,” investigators have said. The woman’s injuries remain unclear.
The five deputies remain on paid administrative leave.
This is not the first fatality that involved DeZubiria. She took part in the February 2022 traffic stop of Jenoah Donald, a 30-year-old Black man, that ended with a Deputy Sean Boyle shooting Donald in the head. The situation devolved in part, records show, because DeZubiria mistook a screwdriver for a deadly weapon.
