U.S. Forest Service Officer Kristine Fairbanks is the second law enforcement officer on the North Olympic Peninsula to be shot and killed while on duty.
The first was Clallam County Sheriff’s Deputy Wally Davis, killed when he answered a disturbance call on Port Angeles’ east side on Aug. 5, 2000.
Davis was met with a shotgun blast fired by Thomas Roberts, an unemployed telephone technician with a history of mental illness.
The deputy’s service pistol was still in its holster when other officers carried him off Roberts’ porch under cover of a ballistic shield.
Davis, 48, was pronounced dead at 1:30 p.m. at Olympic Medical Center.
The Clallam County Courthouse clock was frozen at that time for a week in his memory.
Roberts kept authorities at bay overnight.
SWAT teams from the Washington State Patrol and Seattle Police Department augmented local authorities as they used tear gas to force him out of the house the afternoon of Aug. 6.
In 2002, Roberts was convicted of aggravated first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.
