The Clatsop County District Attorney's Office has ruled that the summer shooting death of a 44-year-old man by a Seaside police officer was justified even though some observers criticized the officer for giving the man little warning before suddenly shooting.

A prosecutor found that although Cpl. David Davidson acted “fast” upon stepping into the Seasider RV Park and mortally wounding Cashus Dean Case with three bullets to the chest, Case was waving or pointing two pistols at others and had uttered the word "kill" just before Davidson started shooting.

“The decisions and actions of Mr. Case ... in the moments before his fatal shooting are unfortunate,” wrote Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Brown in a news release.

The DA’s Office released hundreds of pages of police reports, transcripts from detectives' interviews with the two police officers involved and video of the shooting to The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday.

Body camera footage taken by Jess Vaughan, a second officer who responded to the RV park on the afternoon of July 24, shows the officers walking down a gravel road as shouting is heard in the background. As the officers turn the corner, Case comes into view and Vaughan tells Davidson that Case has a knife.

Over the course of two seconds, Davidson yells, “Hey! Drop it now! Drop it now!” and shoots Case, who immediately falls to the ground.

The video shows that as Davidson yells, Case turns toward him and appears to reach one of his hands behind his back.

Because of the poor video quality and the camera distance, it’s difficult to tell what was in Case's hands or where Case might have been pointing.

After the shooting, the officers found two pistols lying on the ground next to Case, according to the video.

Vaughan later realized he had been mistaken about the knife and that Case had been holding a holstered pistol in his left hand when he turned toward police, according to Vaughan's interview with detectives.

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Some residents at the RV park thought the shooting was justified because he'd repeatedly been told to put away his guns earlier that afternoon. Case had been saying he wanted to kill a fellow resident’s dogs after one of them had badly mauled the face of another man who kicked it, witnesses said.

Case told police who responded earlier that afternoon that he had pulled the man away from the dog. Witnesses said Case then had threatened to kill the dogs, and the dogs' owner had grown fearful enough to call 911 after getting into a shouting match with Case.

Toxicology reports later showed that Case’s body tested positive for methamphetamine and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, according to police reports. Police also noted that Case was a convicted felon.

Some witnesses, however, were shocked that an officer shot Case and questioned that decision.

One of them, Carl Brian Hussey, had been standing next to Case talking to him about the dog-mauling incident and then listening to Case argue with the dogs' owner when police shot Case.

Hussey told detectives in a recorded interview that he hadn’t even realized that police were there. He said he hadn’t heard officers say anything; all he knew was that Case had been shot, then he saw the officers.

“I was like ‘You ... just sneak up behind somebody with assault rifles and just start shooting?’” Hussey recounted.

Hussey said although Case was holding the pistol or pistols, “I didn’t feel threatened at all.” Case had only talked about killing the dogs, he said.

Hussey also was upset that Davidson opened fire when Hussey was standing so close to Case.

“I was so (expletive) scared,” Hussey said. “I thought they were going to kill me. ... Why would they shoot somebody like that, in front, with an innocent person just standing right there?”

Although it would have been impossible for police to tell at the time, Case's guns weren't loaded, according to the DA's office.

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The episode unfolded so quickly that Vaughan later told detectives that he didn’t have time to process it all.

Vaughan said he saw a gun in Case’s waistband next to his back. Although Vaughan said he didn’t have time to make a decision about whether to shoot, “I was thinking, ‘Oh God, he’s pulling that gun out.’” Vaughan didn't shoot.

Davidson offered much more detail than Vaughan about what he heard and saw.

Davidson told detectives that he saw Case “whip up this pistol towards this group of people. I mean, just super violently, and he said something like ‘I’m gonna (expletive) kill him.’”

Davidson said he experienced an “immediate adrenaline dump.”

Davidson said he told Case to drop the gun.

“He, instead, tries to conceal one of the hands behind his back,” Davidson said. “I tell him again, you know, to drop the gun or ‘drop it’ or something like that. ... And instead of dropping, again, he starts bringing both these pistols up. And they’re like, you know, these huge kind of massive-looking pistols.”

That’s when Davidson said he shot his AR-15 rifle three times.

Davidson shot and killed another man in the line of duty in 2016 after that man shot and killed his partner, Sgt. Jason Goodding, in downtown Seaside.

Davidson and Goodding were trying to arrest Phillip Ferry, a wanted felon, when Ferry stuffed his hands in his pockets and Davidson shocked him with a Taser. Ferry then fired a fatal round into Goodding, prompting Davidson to respond with gunfire.

The DA's office also ruled that shooting was justified.

-- Aimee Green