Tacoma man shoots son-in-law: 'I just thought he was going to hurt my daughter'

TACOMA, Wash. — A Tacoma man accused of shooting his daughter’s husband as the couple fought has been charged with first-degree assault.

The 56-year-old pleaded not guilty at arraignment in Pierce County Superior Court on Tuesday.

According to charging papers:

The father told police he woke early Feb. 15 to find his daughter and son-in-law fighting on the balcony of the apartment near 96th and Steele Streets South where they were all living.

He heard his daughter yelling for her husband to let her go, and he saw the husband throw her cellphone over the railing.

Or rather, her father’s cellphone. The husband had damaged her phone previously, so her father was letting her use his.

The son-in-law went outside to get the phone, at which point the father-in-law locked the apartment door.

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​The son-in-law banged on the door, and the father-in-law yelled that he would shoot him if he came back inside.

The son-in-law shouted that he just wanted his stuff.

That’s when the father-in-law said the son-in-law kicked in the door and looked like he was going to attack his daughter.

“I just know that he was heading for her,” and “I shot him,” the father told police, according to the declaration for determination of probable cause. “... I just thought he was going to hurt my daughter.”

He told police that his son-in-law is volatile and that he’d thrown belongings into a lake the night before.

The son-in-law told police that he’d argued with his wife but that he did not assault her.

After the door was locked, he’d just wanted to get his wallet, Xbox and computer and leave, he told police.

He said he kicked in the door and pushed his wife out of the way, which is when her father fired.

The wounded man told police he didn’t hear his father-in-law’s warning that he was armed.

Cox Media Group