The Poulsbo police officer who in July shot and killed a Native American man in a crowd gathered for a fireworks display will not face criminal charges, the Kitsap County prosecutor announced Friday.

Relying mainly on eyewitness accounts from the crowd and physical evidence gathered July 3 from the scene at the Poulsbo waterfront, Prosecutor Chad Enright wrote Officer Craig Keller was justified in shooting Stonechild Chiefstick, 39.

“They have no bias, they have no interest in this case,” Enright said of the 21 witnesses he cited in his report. “These were people whose only involvement was they happened to be there on July 3. What they saw and what they described was what really drove this.”

Review included requests for follow-up investigations

The initial investigation into the shooting at Muriel Iverson Williams Waterfront Park, as a crowd of families waited for sunset to watch the Third of July fireworks, was completed in October by a group of Kitsap County-based police officers called the Kitsap Critical Incident Response Team. Poulsbo police were not involved in the investigation and Keller, who was hired by the city in 2015, remained on administrative leave until Enright's decision. Chief Dan Schoonmaker said on Friday that Keller will return to work.

After the conclusion of the initial investigation, Enright requested follow-up investigations, including for evidence of racial or personal bias on Keller’s part — none was found — and on the city’s body camera system to ensure all footage was accounted for — it was.

Though Keller was wearing a body camera, it was knocked to the ground during an initial scuffle with Chiefstick. That camera and the footage was recovered. The additional investigation also found another officer was wearing a camera but had not turned it on.

Enright’s review solely determined whether Keller should face criminal charges, not whether he followed department policy or should have acted differently. Chief Dan Schoonmaker has said an independent investigation would take place after Enright’s charging decision and a board would make findings about the case. The investigation will review whether Keller followed department policy.

Schoonmaker said he did not have a firm timeline. He has selected the firm to conduct the investigation but not yet signed a contract. He expected it would take 30 to 60 days to complete.

"I asked them to be efficient, but I need them to be thorough more than anything," Schoonmaker said.

Response from the Suquamish Tribe

Chiefstick was not a member of the Suquamish Tribe but was part of the tribal community locally.

In a statement, the Suquamish Tribal Council said Enright's decision not to charge Keller was "of concern to the Suquamish Tribe," but directed its criticisms toward the police response that night.

"That local police were unable to manage an uncomfortable situation involving a person of color without violence has become all too common," the council said. "We believe that this was a preventable homicide. This father of five, a valued member of our community, did not have to die."

Police could have asked Chiefstick to leave the event earlier in the evening "when it was evident that he was experiencing either a mental health or substance abuse episode," or, "Had police officers used de-escalation methods and more skillfully handled the interaction, the encounter could have ended peacefully," the statement said.

Keller and other officers at the scene should be held to account, the tribe said, noting that it would look forward to the department's review. The tribe said it would continue to review Enright's report "and will have further statements and/or actions based on this review."

The incident

Chiefstick had apparently attended the event alone and had drawn police attention leading up to the final encounter after officers received complaints about his behavior.

Officers had contacted him — one interaction was recorded by a body camera — to tell him about the complaints and at one point offered him medical assistance, as he appeared intoxicated, according to reports. Postmortem blood tests found he had alcohol and meth in his system.

The final encounter started when a woman sought an officer in the crowd to report a man, identified as Chiefstick, had just threatened her friend with a screwdriver.

Keller responded to this complaint and Enright wrote that based on this report, Keller had probable cause to arrest Chiefstick for felony assault.

With Keller leading the way, and two other officers behind him, he found Chiefstick. A scuffle ensued and witnesses told investigators that Chiefstick broke free from Keller. It was then that Keller’s body camera fell to the ground. Witnesses said Chiefstick then turned on the officers with a screwdriver in his hand.

Keller fired two shots, hitting Chiefstick twice, once in the head once in the chest. He fell to the ground. A screwdriver matching the description was found at the scene.

Redacted body camera footage from an officer who was helping give first-aid to Chiefstick, obtained by the Kitsap Sun through records requests, recorded officers searching Chiefstick for wounds and covering bullet holes with bandages. As Chiefstick’s pants began to fall, an officer pulled them back up.

It’s unclear if Chiefstick was conscious, but officers alternately encouraged him and discussed what they knew of the shooting as they waited for medics.

“Hang with us, buddy, we got help coming, OK? Sit tight,” one officer told Chiefstick.

Another officer described his version of events, saying Chiefstick was trying to fight officers. Keller was not among the officers rendering aid.

“He was trying to get away and then he turned on us, there were three of us here, I think, turned on us with a screwdriver,” one officer said. “Lunging, dancing around, waving (unintelligible), and started to come forward, two shots were fired.”

Also heard on the recording: “We have been having a lot of problems with the guy, he’s been kicked out of every bar, we’ve had multiple calls on him.”

Chiefstick died in the back of an ambulance a short time later as medics prepared to have him flown to a Seattle emergency room for treatment.

The fireworks display was not canceled and proceeded as planned.

Officer gives a statement

Keller initially declined to make a statement. After the bulk of the records were released in October to the public, Enright said Keller submitted a written statement in December where he alleged Chiefstick attacked him twice before he fired.

Chiefstick “attacked me with a weapon and attempted to stab me,” Keller wrote in his statement. “He moved to attack me a second time and I fired my weapon in defense of my life and the lives of citizens around me.”

Keller added, according to Enright's report: “(H)ad I not shot Mr. Chiefstick, he would have severely injured or killed myself and/or other citizens.”

How Enright reached his decision

In his report, Enright pushed back against assumptions that the information was based on the police version of events, though he noted often in police shootings the only witnesses are officers.

“Some may conclude that what follows is the ‘police version.’” Enright wrote. “It is not. This is what spectators saw in the moments after the body camera was dislodged and before Officer Keller made the decision to use deadly force.”

It was not one statement or a single piece of evidence, Enright said, that led to the decision. Though there are differences in what people saw — accounted for by their vantage point and what they focused on during the fast-moving incident, which took about 10 seconds — Enright said there were “commonalities.”

The report includes statements from nearly two dozen non-police witnesses who either completed their own statements or gave statements to police investigators.

“When you tie together all the consistencies between all the witnesses, that is what gave me the best picture of what happened,” he said.

One witness said Keller and Chiefstick were 5 to 7 feet apart when Keller fired, another 4 feet. A previous story in the Kitsap Sun reported investigators estimated they were 9 feet apart. Enright relied on a Washington State Patrol Crime Lab finding that the powder burns on Chiefstick's face indicate he was about 2 feet from Keller’s gun when Keller fired.

“This distance would have limited the non-lethal alternatives available to Officer Keller,” Enright wrote.

Enright said though Keller is an officer, the same laws regarding self-defense apply. Enright noted the short distance between the two and evidence that Chiefstick was armed with a screwdriver and was “lunging” at Keller.

“Those are the big factors” in making the decision to decline to file charges, Enright said: the physical distance, that Chiefstick was armed and the manner in which he was holding the screwdriver.

“Some described it as lunging, some described stabbing motions,” Enright said. “It’s fair to say most witnesses described him holding it in a threatening manner.”

One witness described seeing no struggle before shooting

Included in Enright’s report is the account of a witness who sent texts and wrote a widely circulated post on social media criticizing the shooting, saying it was “not right.” She wrote she did not see Chiefstick behave erratically, holding a weapon, or struggling with Keller before being shot. When she was later questioned by an investigator the officer wrote that the woman said she was at the park when the shooting occurred but did not witness the actual shooting. Some of the other details she shared were contradicted by body camera footage and other witnesses.

Enright wrote the woman offered “valuable descriptions of the events, but they are inconsistent with most witness statements.”

In his report, Enright also pushed back against information circulating on social media that he said was not backed by facts.

“The decision to file criminal charges must always be driven by the evidence and by the law,” Enright wrote. “Here, it must be guided by the provable facts of what occurred on July 3rd and not by assumptions, theories, or conjecture inflamed by unsubstantiated social media comments.”

Inquiry into racial bias

Chiefstick was a member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in Box Elder, Montana but was also an active member of the Suquamish tribal community. He was survived by his mother, three sisters and five children.

The shooting aggravated tensions between Native American communities and law enforcement, especially after a memorial in Poulsbo to Chiefstick was found vandalized.

Enright requested additional investigation into complaints of racism or bias, generally and specific to Chiefstick.

Included was a request to attorneys for Chiefstick’s friends and family, and on social media, for prior contacts between him and Keller, and no further information was provided.

“We can’t deny the statistics about officer involved shootings across the country,” Enright said. “We know they disproportionately affect minority communities. So I think when you have that situation you have an obligation to look into it a bit closer to see if bias played any part.”

The additional investigation found neither evidence of any substantive prior encounters between Chiefstick and Keller nor complaints of racism against Keller, who started his law enforcement career in 2014 as an officer with the Port Gamble-S’Klallam Tribal Police Department.

“This case has been viewed by many members of our public within the context of racial injustice that has occurred within our own community over generations,” Enright wrote. “The pleas for this case to be considered within that history are heartfelt and sincere. The law, however, does not permit the conduct of others in the past to influence the decision regarding whether criminal charges should be filed today.”

Chief responds

Schoonmaker said the decision to use deadly force is one of the most difficult decisions an officer can make, and the pain felt by officers, Chiefstick’s family and witnesses remains fresh.

“The ramifications of that decision, whether justified, as in this case, or not, are lasting forever,” Schoonmaker said. “It’s still a tough situation and will continue to be a tough situation.”

Reporter Nathan Pilling contributed to this story.