Teacher killed outside WA school before classes
TACOMA, WA
The suspect was killed in a shootout with a deputy a short time
later about 10 miles away, said Pierce County sheriff's spokesman
Ed Troyer.
The man had posted bail Monday, a few days after he was arrested
for violating a protective order the teacher, Jennifer Paulson,
obtained in September 2008.
"She was a very kind, merciful, loving person," said her
father, Ken Paulson. "That's probably why she was a special
education teacher -- because she loved so much."
He described the 30-year-old as a devout Christian, and said she
had been pestered by the shooter, Jed Waits, of Ellensburg, for
years.
The two had known each other since she was in college, when they
worked together at a cafeteria at Seattle Pacific University.
In her petition for the anti-harassment order filed in Pierce
County District Court, Paulson said she and Waits occasionally
socialized with co-workers and friends outside of work as a group
but "never had any sort of romantic involvement."
She said heard from Waits about once a year since she graduated
from college in 2003 -- and on that annual occasion he sometimes
called her 10 to 15 times in one day.
Things became more intense in spring 2008, when he showed up her
school, walked into the building and passed the office, where he
was stopped by a secretary. Later that year, she saw him sitting in
his car near the school.
"I never told him where I work and do not know how he found
out," Paulson wrote.
He also sent roses and a bear to her at the school. Paulson's
principal called Waits' commander in the National Guard to inform
him of the harassment, she wrote.
Keith Kosik, a spokesman for the Guard, said Waits was
repeatedly disciplined during his tenure with the service and was
less-than-honorably discharged in April 2009. He deployed to Kuwait
with his unit in 2007.
The anti-harassment order banned Waits from going within 1,000
feet of Paulson's home or school. But she saw him as she was
leaving work last Friday, so she called 911 from her car. Waits was
arrested that night, and after he made bail, Paulson stopped
staying at her home, her father said.
Tacoma Police spokesman Mark Fulghum said there had been no
indication that Waits had a weapon or had threatened Paulson with a
weapon, but it appeared he had a serious infatuation.
The shooting happened at Birney Elementary, which has about 400
students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Classes were canceled
for the day, and officials had not made a decision about Monday's
schedule.
The shooter was waiting for the teacher when she arrived at 7:35
a.m. and shot her multiple times as she was trying to enter the
school, Fulghum said.
"I heard a teacher screaming at the top of her lungs -- just
screaming," said Omar Moreno, 22, who lives across the street from
the school, adding he heard three gunshots. "I looked out my
window and I saw the guy. He started running down the middle of the
street and got in his car."
A deputy pulled over the suspect's car in the parking lot of a
daycare, and he came out firing a handgun, Troyer said. The deputy
returned fire and killed the man.
"We're lucky our guy's OK. The guy did have semiautomatic and
did fire a round," Troyer told KCPQ-TV.
School district spokesman Dan Voelpel said Paulson worked in the
language resource center helping students one-on-one with reading
problems. She had been with the district since 2004 and at the
school since 2007.
Paulson's death "knocked everyone flat," Voelpel said. "It's
going to hit this community hard."
The shooting occurred three days after a 32-year-old man with a
history of mental illness opened fire in a middle school parking
lot in Colorado, wounding two students.