The man shot by delegates from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday night is a 30-year-old black man, his family confirmed to OPB on Friday.
Vancouver’s Jenoah Donald was shot in the unincorporated community of Hazel Dell, Washington. He remains hospitalized, investigators said on Saturday. The shooting took place less than a kilometer from where an anti-drug task force killed Kevin Peterson Jr. about three months ago.
Photo provided by the family of Jenoah Donald, 30 years old. Family members confirmed on Friday that deputies from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office shot Donald.
Contribution of the family of Jenoah Donald
Donald’s mother, Susan Zawacky, said she knew very little about the events that led to the murder of her son, who is being investigated by an independent team under a relatively new state law.
“We are not getting answers,” said Zawacky. “I have as much information as you do.”
“I don’t know how I feel right now, to be honest with you,” Zawacky added later.
Donald continues with life support devices, according to the Vancouver chapter of the NAACP. On Saturday, the organization released a statement saying that Donald had died, but police officers released an update confirming that Donald remains hospitalized.
The family asked that no demonstrations be held, the NAACP Vancouver chapter said in its statement. These demonstrations have taken place regularly after the killings of black Americans by the police.
“They are in shock and trying to suffer,” said the organization. “Any public demonstrations made at this time would be a direct violation of the family’s wishes.”
According to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, police started a traffic stop at 7:41 pm on Thursday, near the intersection of Northeast 68th Street and Northeast 2nd Avenue. The agency did not give details about what initiated the interaction.
The person shot, according to the press release, was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition. A GoFundMe for Donald showed up on Friday afternoon to raise funeral expenses.
“(Donald’s family) has been warned that there is nothing more that doctors can do,” wrote the fundraiser. “This is an unexpected tragedy and the family hopes to raise funds to cover funeral expenses to put it to rest.”
On Friday, neither the Clark County Sheriff’s Office nor the investigators released new information. It is not known who the deputies were in that shot, how many shots they fired and why the police contacted Donald.
Four deputies were involved and one fired the gun, the sheriff’s office said on Saturday.
Neighbors said police remained in the area until late at night.
Steve Dean, a 70-year-old retiree, said he was watching television in his basement when he heard a shot. Then he heard a crash against his wooden fence. When he looked outside, he saw vehicles marked with the sheriff’s office and a car in its fence.
“I could see that the fence was broken down,” he said. Dean said he couldn’t see the driver, only his feet. He said that when he left, the police told him to go home.
Across the street, neighboring Stephanie Bates said she saw nothing, but later learned that a car crossed north across her lawn before crossing Northeast 68th Avenue and crashing into Dean’s fence.
Bates said that when she looked out the window, she saw three police vehicles – none of which appeared to be unmarked or in disguise.
“The person had not yet been taken out of the car, so they were basically trying to get the person out of the car and onto the stretcher,” she said.
Like Dean, she said the police told her and her family to stay home.
The shooting took place about three months after Clark County Sheriff’s Office delegates shot and killed Kevin Peterson Jr., 21, who was also black, during a failed drug bust, as reported by the OPB for the first time. .
The investigation into the shooting ended in late November and was first released to the public in installments in December. A criminal review of this case is still ongoing.