The call came into the Skagit County 911 center a little before 2:20 p.m. Tuesday. It was Dennise Zamora, telling dispatchers there was an “unwanted guest” who was possibly armed. That person was her son, Isaac Zamora.
Skagit County sheriff’s Deputy Anne Jackson and other officers were dispatched to a residence on Silver Creek Drive in Alger in northern Skagit County. It would be Jackson’s last call.
Something during the course of Jackson’s investigation led her to Bridle Place, said Sgt. Robert Goetz with the Snohomish County Multiple Agency, which is investigating the incident Tuesday that left six dead and two wounded.
At 4:10 p.m. deputies told radio dispatchers that they were under fire at Bridle Place. It isn’t clear whether Jackson arrived first, but her fellow officers coming to assist her found her dead from a gunshot wound. Another victim was located nearby, but the manner of that person’s death wasn’t released.
As the afternoon became evening, matters got worse. Residents returning to two other locations in the Alger area first reported finding another person dead at 5 p.m. and then at 5:19 p.m. finding the bodies of two construction workers, authorities said. The construction workers apparently had been working at private residences in the area.
Meanwhile, at about 4:10 p.m., a motorcyclist was shot in the arm near the Alger Shell Station. He is expected to recover, Goetz said.
About the same time, Trooper Troy Giddings, 42, positioned his patrol car to try to stop the suspect, who was driving a metallic tan GMC pickup, said State Patrol Capt. Mark Couey.
The driver fired a gun out the window of the truck, and a bullet hit Giddings, a 15-year-veteran officer, in the arm on the interstate near the Bow Hill rest stop.
Gunfire also killed a sixth victim — a motorist traveling on I-5. Initially, the sixth death was reported to dispatchers as a single-car crash, but later authorities learned that the driver had been shot, Couey said.
After he was wounded, Giddings pulled out of the chase and went to United General Hospital in Sedro-Woolley, Couey said. He was treated and released Tuesday night and he is expected to make a full recovery, Couey said.
The suspect fled south on the interstate, chased by other troopers, deputies and Mount Vernon police officers who joined the pursuit, reaching speeds of 90 mph.
At the Kincaid Street exit in Mount Vernon, the suspect turned right onto Kincaid then right again in back of the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, stopping in the north parking lot of the building.
Then 28-year-old Isaac Lee Zamora surrendered to authorities without further resistance.
“This is a sad situation that happened,” said Trooper Keith Leary, a spokesman for the State Patrol.
Leary said that the death in the line of duty of a deputy would be felt nationally by the entire law enforcement community from the federal to local levels.
“My heart goes out to the family of the victim at this point,” Leary said.
Jackson, 40, was hired by the sheriff’s office as an animal control officer in 2002 and in January 2005 she became a patrol deputy. She was single, and didn’t have any children. Her family lives in Oregon.
“The impact of this tragedy will be far reaching,” said Skagit County Sheriff Rick Grimstead.
The last time an officer died in the line of duty in Skagit County was in 1982 when a drunken driver killed another sheriff’s deputy.
The suspect’s mother, Dennise Zamora, expressed her own sorrow at the shootings. She said that she and her husband had tried for years to get help for their son, who she said suffers from severe mental illness. She said that state laws preventing her from having her son involuntarily committed to an institution.
Meanwhile, Gov. Chris Gregoire called for an independent investigation of Zamora’s criminal history and his handling by the state Department of Corrections. She said she will expect the department to provide all information from Zamora’s DOC files to her and the independent review team by Thursday.
“Public safety continues to be a top priority of my administration,” she said. “My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families of the victims of today’s tragic crimes.”
Isaac Zamora has an extensive criminal record dating back to the early 1990s. The Washington Courts Web site lists some 50 cases involving Isaac Lee Zamora in Skagit, Whatcom and Snohomish counties.
Law enforcement officials from the State Patrol and the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office put dozens of officers to work trying to sort out the mayhem. By late afternoon Tuesday they were attempting to gather evidence from what they said were at least seven different crime scenes.
The investigation is so complex that it will take several days to determine exactly what happened and in what sequence, Goetz said.
“We want to make sure we do our best for all the victims,” Goetz said.
Southbound traffic on I-5 was halted completely for about a half an hour as investigators searched for evidence along the roadway. One lane was then opened to traffic.
Residents along Silver Creek Drive began arriving home from work late in the afternoon to find several television station reporters and other media representatives clustered near the barricades set up by officers.
Shirley Wenrick, a neighbor of the Zamoras, said that she had concerns about Isaac Zamora’s behavior.
“I expected something to happen, but I never ever dreamt that he would do something like this,” she said. “It’s very disturbing. It could have been any one of us.”
* Staff writer Ralph Schwartz contributed to this story.
