Deputy death raises frisking issue

As the King County Sheriff's Office investigates the shooting death of Deputy Steve Cox inside a White Center house, they will be looking at whether Cox or the other deputies checked partygoers at the home for weapons.

The deputies went to the house early Saturday morning in search of people who had just beaten and shot a motorist outside. Sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart said that at that point, the deputies didn't know whether anyone inside the party was responsible for the shooting or was armed.

Urquhart added that it's also unclear if the deputies had a right to pat down each person they interviewed inside the house.

Cox, 46, a nine-year veteran of the force and a popular White Center community activist, was shot in the head in a back bedroom at the house. Cox's gun was holstered.

The man believed to be the shooter — a 23-year-old Burien resident identified by sources as Raymond O. Porter — was shot and killed by two deputies who rushed to Cox's side after hearing gunfire in the room where Cox was interviewing the Burien man alone.

"He may have been searched; we don't know he wasn't," Urquhart said Sunday. "This is not television. We don't line people against he wall and frisk them all down. We're not allowed to do that."

Urquhart said the three or four deputies who entered the house in the 10400 block of 12th Avenue Southwest along with Cox will be debriefed to find out whether anyone was frisked.

Deputies have recovered two guns from the home — one that was used to shoot the motorist and the other used to shoot Cox twice in the head, Urquhart said.

The deputies who fired the shots that killed Cox's assailant are on routine administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

Deputies also will be trying to talk to four people, two men and two women, arrested at the White Center home Saturday for alleged involvement in the assault on the motorist. The motorist, whose name hasn't been released, suffered non-life-threatening injuries even though he was shot twice in the head and beaten.

Meanwhile, a memorial to Cox outside the White Center Sheriff & Community Service Center that started with a few bouquets of flowers had expanded down the block by Sunday.

Many cried as they stood on the sidewalk, looking at the flowers and notes. A law-enforcement officer will stand vigil outside the memorial 24 hours a day until Cox's funeral, scheduled for Friday at the Christian Faith Center South in SeaTac.

Partygoers frisked?

Urquhart said the Sheriff's Office is fielding lots of questions from the media about whether partygoers were frisked for weapons.

Though deputies were investigating a violent attack and Cox knew the criminal histories of some at the party, Urquhart said investigators would have needed "reasonable suspicion" to frisk any of the nearly 15 people at the gathering.

Washington state Assistant Attorney General John Wasberg, who regularly teaches police officers their legal rights when it comes to frisking, said case law requires police to have "articulable suspicion" that a person is "armed and dangerous" before searching them.

He said the law gets hazy when it comes to searching large groups.

"At some point you can't just go through everybody," Wasberg said. "What if there's a shooting at a high-school ballgame; are you going to frisk everybody? At some point you're not able to pinpoint it enough."

Law-enforcement officers should err on the side of their own personal safety, but might avoid searching someone because they don't want the case to be thrown out in court, Wasberg said.

Seattle attorney Anne Bremner, who regularly represents Seattle police in civil cases involving unlawful search and seizure, said that had the case occurred in Seattle, officers there likely would have frisked everyone in the house before conducting interviews.

"They are always taught that officer safety is a paramount concern," she said.

But Bremner said that because Cox was a former deputy prosecutor, he probably had an extensive knowledge of search-and-seizure laws. She said a lot of details about what happened just before he was shot will never be known.

"This is an unwitnessed homicide of an officer. We don't know what happened," Bremner said.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com