Clark County's 911 call takers aren't to blame for the chaos that led SWAT officers to shoot a man they mistook for a fleeing gunman last Halloween, the county's emergency dispatch agency said Tuesday.

The six dispatchers and a supervisor followed proper protocols and state law, the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency said in its own review of police findings, 911 recordings and other reports in the case.

The announcement comes a month after the county's Prosecuting Attorney's Office found two Vancouver police officers and a Clark County deputy were not at fault when they fired eight times at Brent Graham and hit him once in the leg.

The SWAT officers found Graham when he called 911 to report a suspicious car parked in a wooded area off Blandford Drive while on his way to his private security job in Portland.

It turned out to be the car of John Kendall, who had shot his neighbor, Abigail Mounce, while they were both in cars on their way to a court hearing over a property dispute. Kendall then fled, triggering a manhunt that led to the wooded area.

Graham didn't know at the time who owned the car or that there was a search for a gunman nearby. Graham said the SWAT officers never shouted a warning before firing on him and he plans to file a lawsuit.

The Prosecuting Attorney's Office said it wasn't feasible for the SWAT officers to have given Graham a warning before firing and that the officers acted in "a reasonable manner" based on the information they had at the time.

A Camas police review of Graham's shooting cited "a major operational error" by the emergency dispatch agency because no one was assigned to coordinate incoming police radio traffic. Camas police were brought in to do an outside investigation of what happened.

Officers on the scene either missed critical information because all involved agencies were operating on separate radio channels or they received broken and confusing details, the Camas police report said.

Dispatchers told the officers that the gunman was in the area, but not that anyone else was around, the investigators said. Graham also was never asked to give a description of himself or his car and was never told to leave the area or warned about the manhunt, the report said.

CRESA says its review concluded that assertions of dispatcher mistakes were "unfounded."

The agency said it took nearly 180 incoming calls related to the shootings and search for Kendall, which lasted about an hour and a half, as well as handling about 40 other non-related calls and reports. The incidents were monitored over six different radio channels and led authorities to lock down 15 different locations.

"In light of a complex incident moving across jurisdictional boundaries, involving multiple disciplines and multiple agencies on multiple channels, the 911 dispatchers did a phenomenal job," said Katy Myers, CRESA's dispatch operations manager.

Kendall fatally shot himself near where his car was found sometime before Graham called 911, police said. Mounce survived.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey