Was. authorities trying to determine if shootout victim was Clearfield runaway

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. -- Authorities were trying to determine Tuesday if the teenager fatally shot Sunday in Port Orchard was a 13-year-old girl believed to have run away from the Salt Lake City area with a 31-year-old man killed in the shooting.

The man, Anthony A. Martinez, who was killed by a Kitsap County sheriff's deputy during the shootout outside a Walmart store, already was facing felony charges of kidnapping the girl last year in Utah when they apparently again took off together last week.

The State Patrol, which is overseeing the investigation, said the girl did not carry identification.

Trooper Krista Hedstrom, a State Patrol spokeswoman, said investigators were talking with authorities in the Salt Lake City area to find out more about Martinez and the girl. Hedstrom could not confirm the dead girl was the same girl who ran away from a Clearfield, Utah, foster home last week, but said "there is a possibility."

Martinez wounded two sheriff's deputies before he was killed by a third deputy, according to the Sheriff's Office. The girl died from gunfire during the shootout, but it wasn't immediately clear who fired the fatal shots.

Kitsap County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Scott Wilson said one of the two wounded deputies was released from Tacoma General Hospital on Monday. The deputy has been with the department since September 2001, Wilson said.

The other injured deputy, who was hired by the Sheriff's Office in July 2004, remained at Tacoma General Hospital and could be released as early as Tuesday, Wilson said.

Neither deputy will be identified by the Sheriff's Office until Tuesday, Wilson said.

Deputies went to the Walmart around 3:45 p.m. Sunday after someone inside the store dialed 911 to report seeing a suspicious man outside carrying a gun. Two deputies found the armed man in the store's outdoor designated smoking area, authorities said.

Witnesses Destany Droge, 22, and Emmili Jones, 20, said they had just left the store when they saw two deputies talking to a heavyset man dressed in a black beanie cap and a black-and-white puffy jacket. The two women said the deputies were trying to escort the man toward a blue minivan when he started to run toward a wooded area.

The man, in midsprint, pulled out a gun and fired behind his back over his shoulder without turning to look where the shots were going, Wilson said. The two deputies were hit.

Wilson, the sheriff's spokesman, said a third deputy, a female who has been with the Sheriff's Office nearly 10 years, then shot and killed the gunman. The female deputy, who was placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated, wasn't hurt.

Witnesses Droge and Jones said a young woman then ran into the chaotic scene and toward the gunman as he was collapsing, and fell near him after she was shot.

An autopsy was conducted on the girl's body Monday, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office, which is handling the autopsy because she died at a Tacoma hospital.

Her name will be released once her family is notified, the Medical Examiner's Office said.

The autopsy also is expected to shed light on who shot the teen, law-enforcement officials said. The State Patrol is investigating the shooting because of the deputies' involvement.

The 13-year-old girl believed to be with Martinez fled her foster home last Tuesday.

South Salt Lake police Sgt. Gary Keller said she had been placed in the foster home after she was found with Martinez in Sacramento, Calif., last fall. Martinez was arrested on a felony child-kidnapping warrant filed by South Salt Lake police detectives.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge in November, posted a $25,000 bond and was released, according to court records.

Martinez was issued a no-contact order to stay away from the girl, said Clearfield, Utah, Assistant Police Chief Mike Stenquist.

The girl was fitted with a GPS ankle bracelet but managed to slip out of it when she left the home last week, he said.

A flier released by authorities said she may be with Martinez, and provided a description of a van that closely resembled a vehicle found by police in the Walmart parking lot Sunday.

"We haven't been able to confirm she was traveling with him, although we suspect it," Keller said.

Martinez was a friend of the girl's mother and had been living with the family. He and the girl "apparently considered themselves boyfriend and girlfriend," Stenquist said.

Martinez's criminal history includes convictions for felony drug charges and misdemeanor aggravated assault, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

When a Salt Lake City TV crew showed up at the girl's home Monday, they were blocked from the mobile-home park. Reporter Sarah Dallof said a note was posted on the door, but she couldn't get close enough to read it.

Ryan Hansen, the principal at North Davis Junior High School, which the girl had attended until her disappearance last fall, said there "are a number of people here who care very deeply about her."

------

(c) 2011, The Seattle Times.

Visit The Seattle Times Extra on the World Wide Web at http://www.seattletimes.com/.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

 

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