Police report sheds light on gun incident outside Camas school

Documents obtained from the Camas Police Department are shedding light on what happened outside Camas’ Skyridge Middle School on Sept. 24, after an 11-year-old youth football player allegedly threatened other children with firearms stored in his father’s truck.

Camas police officer Steven Jeffries reported in a probable cause document that the juveniles had finished their Clark County Youth Football league practice around 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 24, and “while some of the kids had already left the Skyridge practice field, others — including the juvenile accused of threatening peers with his father’s guns — were “involved in a game of ‘tag’ where they would run after and tap each other, sometimes hard.”

In a follow-up interview with one of the juveniles who witnessed the events, Jeffries said the children were playing tag while their coaches were having a meeting away from the field.

That is when one of the boys, an 11-year-old who police later referred to the Clark County juvenile prosecuting attorney for possible charges, allegedly became upset that other boys were bullying him.

Several witnesses said they saw the juvenile suspect go to his father’s truck parked nearby and, according to the probably cause documents, “grab a pistol out of the center console, (take it) out of a holster and point the barrel of the pistol toward (other children) while saying loud enough for (witnesses) to hear, ‘If you get any closer, I will shoot you.’”

One of the children told Jeffries that the boy eventually put the pistol back into the center console of the truck and then the four boys continued playing tag for a few minutes.

“After approximately three minutes of playing tag again, (the boy who had allegedly brandished the pistol) became mad again for allegedly targeting him,” Jeffries stated in the report. “At this time, he went back to (his father’s) truck, but this time opened a rear passenger door … lifted the rear bench seat and grabbed what appeared to be a rifle from under the seat.”

Witnesses told Jeffries the boy pointed the rifle toward other children and made “a sweeping motion back and forth with the barrel in their direction for … a few seconds.”

Police later arrested the father, Kurt Hall, 50, who had brought the guns to the football practice in his truck and cited him for second-degree community endangerment due to unsafe storage of a firearm.

Jeffries reported that he recovered “a semi-automatic, 12-gauge shotgun that was fed with a box magazine (and) designed loosely off an Armalite style rifle,” as well as an empty pistol from Hall’s truck and said Hall had “the loaded (pistol) magazine on his person” and that the 12-gauge shotgun had a magazine with shells in it but that the shotgun’s chamber was empty.

Jeffries added that Hall “has an active concealed weapons permit and was not in violation of having a loaded weapon in the vehicle.”

Police reports show Hall was meeting with his son’s youth football league coaches to discuss the alleged bullying when the incident occurred.

“(Hall) explained that the meeting he was having with the other coaches after practice was regarding bullying … both in school and at practice.”

Jeffries said he spoke with three of the youth football league coaches who were present during the Sept. 24 incident.

“They all stated they had not witnessed the event as they were off to the side with (Hall) conducting the coaches’ meeting, when they heard the kids getting loud and saying … ‘He’s got a gun’ and pointing toward (Hall’s) truck,” Jeffries started in his report.

He also noted that other children reported that the boy accused of brandishing the guns had also “grabbed a knife from the truck and began to chase (other children) with it on the field near the back parking lot, where (his) dad’s truck was parked.”

At least one of the children recorded this incident on their phone, but Jeffries said coaches deleted the video to allegedly “eliminate the possibility of the video spreading.”

Before deleting the video from the juvenile’s phone, police said football coach Owen Sanford — who also works as Camas High School’s associate principal) recorded the video from the boy’s phone and later sent it to the police.

Camas police officer Diane Dyra reported that the video was about 12 seconds long and “showed someone in football pants stepping backwards out of a vehicle and … reaching for what appears to be a rifle style firearm.”

Jeffries also interviewed Latisha Wise, the wife of football coach Teagen Wise. It was Latisha, Jeffries stated in the report, who sounded the alarm, alerting the coaches to what was allegedly occurring and telling them “she thought something serious was going on.”

Latisha told Jeffries she had been walking from the upper field at Skyridge Middle School where her son was practicing football when she noticed the juvenile suspect and other boys running in a nearby field.

“She advised at this time they did not appear to be upset, just to be goofing around,” Jeffries stated in the report. “She noticed the coaches were off to the side, having a coaches’ meeting, so she decided to start helping grab bags and clean up for everyone at the end of practice. A short time later, after clearing up, she noticed (the juvenile suspect) was sitting in the front seat of (Hall’s) truck and his entire body language was changed. She said she has known (him) for years through sports and school, and he appeared very visually upset as he was sitting in the truck.”

Latisha told Jeffries she went up to the truck to ask the boy if he was OK, but that he “would not respond to acknowledge her, which she found wildly out of character for (him).”

“As (Latisha) was trying to contact (the boy, other children) were nearby and, in her words, appeared to be attempting to antagonize (the boy sitting in the truck),” Jeffries reported.

“She asked them to stop and go away,” Jeffries added, but the children mocked Latisha before telling her there were guns in Hall’s truck.

“She expressed that, at that moment, she did not take that statement as anything other than exaggeration,” Jeffries reported, noting that after one of the boys told Latisha they had video showing the firearms “she decided to get the coaches involved immediately and called loudly that they needed to come over to her location next to (Hall’s) truck.”

Jeffries also commented that Hall was “very compliant” throughout the entire incident.

“Multiple times I commented to (Hall) that I could see with clarity that the severity of the situation was not lost on him,” Jeffries stated in his report. “(I heard) him comment multiple times that he had been trying to raise his son with knowledge and respect for firearms and he was at a loss that this had not only occurred but (had) occurred right in front of him.”