Special-ed teacher shot dead in Washington

Reporting from Seattle — 

A 30-year-old special education teacher was shot to death near the parking lot of a Tacoma, Wash., elementary school Friday, only a week after the man accused in the killing was jailed for harassing her.

The shooting occurred early in the morning, before any students arrived, and the suspect, identified as Jed Waits, also 30, was shot to death a short time later by a sheriff’s deputy who pulled over his car about 10 miles from the school.

School officials were able to divert incoming school buses to another location and closed Birney Elementary School as a flood of police and emergency vehicles descended on the area.

Jennifer Paulson, who taught children with reading disabilities, had worked with Waits in the cafeteria at Seattle Pacific University years earlier, but had apparently not known him well, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said.

She obtained an anti-harassment order against him about two years ago when he began calling her, sometimes 10 to 15 times a day. At one point, he sent her flowers and a stuffed bear, and unexpectedly showed up at the school.

“I never told him where I work and do not know how he found out,” Paulson had written in her petition for the order, which was obtained by the Associated Press.

Fulghum said Waits was arrested Feb. 19 when Paulson called police to say that Waits had turned up again, in violation of the order.

Waits’ bail was raised to $10,000 at the request of the Pierce County prosecutor’s office Monday morning, but he was able to post it.

Ken Paulson, the victim’s father, told reporters at the scene that his daughter had been staying with her parents since she learned Waits had been released.

“What happened today was evil,” he said.

Neighbors, who ran outside when they heard the sound of screaming and gunshots, along with another school staff member, were able to provide a description of the suspect and his car.

The Pierce County sheriff’s deputy pulled over the car on a traffic stop shortly before 8 a.m., department spokesman Ed Troyer said.

“We knew who he was because we had a plate number,” Troyer said. “One of our deputies got behind him, turned the lights on, and about six blocks later, he pulls in the parking lot of a day care, comes out of the car with a gun, a semiautomatic handgun.”

“He fires off a round, our deputy fires back two rounds, hits him, he goes down,” said Troyer, who added that the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.

kim.murphy@latimes.com