Officers Mourn Ex-Colleague Killed by Suspect in Standoff

Police in La Palma mourned Sunday over the death of a former colleague, fatally shot the day before while on duty in a Washington state city where he had moved to escape the bustle and danger of an increasingly urban Orange County.

Clallum County Sheriff’s Deputy Wally E. Davis, 48, was remembered by former colleagues as a Renaissance man who also published Christian murder mysteries, Western novels and cartoons. He leaves behind a pregnant wife and three children from a previous marriage.

Officers found Davis’ body on the porch of a Port Angeles, Wash., home shortly after noon Saturday. He apparently was shot in the head by a man who had barricaded himself inside with a shotgun. Davis, who had worked about 14 years with the La Palma Police Department, was responding to a domestic disturbance call placed by a neighbor, said Clallum County Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Borte.

In a 25-hour standoff with the gunman, 60 officers fired rounds of tear gas and pepper spray into the house in an attempt to force the suspect out.

The standoff ended Sunday afternoon when Thomas Martin Roberts, 53, surrendered to police. Reports said Roberts had been previously arrested for a violation of a protection order and domestic assault. He was booked on suspicion of first-degree murder of an officer and, if convicted, could face the death penalty.

Davis moved to Port Angeles five years ago after 15 years of service in Orange County, most of them with the La Palma police.

The news shocked members of the tiny La Palma department, which has only 25 sworn officers and still considers Davis one of their own. Employees said the city has never lost an officer in the line of duty. The eternal flame that burns outside their office is dedicated to fallen citizens, not officers, and police consider their community quiet and safe.

To hear officers describe it, La Palma is not unlike the more remote Port Angeles. The former logging town is about 60 miles from Seattle, nestled near mountains on northern Olympic Peninsula. Officers said Davis, who loved the outdoors, moved there because it was safer, and Orange County was becoming too busy and hectic.

Karen Morey, a long time La Palma dispatcher who talked with Davis on the telephone earlier this year said, “It was quiet. A nice place to raise his children.”

Officers described Davis as a simple man with a sharp sense of humor. He chronicled the department’s foibles in hundreds of cartoons that hung on its walls and circulated from desk to desk. Copies of them are still around the office today.