Manhunt For Escapee Ends In Shootout

Detective Ed Troyer confirmed that 36-year-old Harold McCord Jr., who escaped Monday from the Pierce County Courthouse, had been captured.

"It is our guy," said Troyer, a Pierce County sheriff's spokesman.

McCord was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he died at 5:32 p.m., Snohomish County sheriff's spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen said.

Apartment Residents Shocked By Shootout

The unidentified officer, also airlifted to Harborview, was hit in the shoulder and forearm, Jorgensen said. His injuries were not life-threatening, she added.

McCord had been sentenced earlier this month to life in prison under Washington's "three strikes" law.

The shooting took place at an apartment complex in Blueberry Lane near U.S. 2 in this Snohomish County town at least 60 miles northeast of Tacoma. Pierce County sheriff's officers had targeted the area as a location where McCord might be found.

Jorgensen said four Monroe police officers and four police officers from nearby Bothell went to the apartment to serve a search warrant. The officers forced their way in and McCord refused to surrender.

"He indicated that he had a gun and he was very threatening to officers," Jorgensen said.

She did not say who fired first but said one Monroe officer was hit in the exchange of gunfire and McCord suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

Jorgensen could not say how many officers fired at McCord.

Multiple tips led Pierce County officers to ask Monroe police to search the apartment, Troyer said.

"They helped us out; unfortunately they paid the price for it," the Pierce County spokesman said. "Our guys are really upset about this."

Troyer added that one of McCord's criminal associates was linked to the Monroe address.

On Monday, McCord's handcuffs and shackles had been removed while he was in court for a pretrial hearing on three counts of second-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm.

He ran from the courtroom Monday and was tackled by a guard. As they fought, he held a fake gun to the guard's head.

"Two other officers who were several yards away saw the incident happen and lowered their weapons. At this point the suspect fled through the building, exiting the building and ran several blocks," removing his gray jail T-shirt, Pierce County sheriff's spokeswoman Lauren Pawlawski said.

"The guys had to make a decision," Troyer said earlier, "and they made the decision not to get a correctional officer killed. ... They could have shot him, and then we'd be sitting there with a dead inmate with a paper gun in his hand."

The fake gun McCord used Monday was designed to look like a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun. It had a frame made of cardboard from the back of a legal pad, filled with dampened toilet paper, and covered with newspaper. He used ink from pens to blacken it, and slid in one of the empty pen cartridges to make the barrel appear real.

"It's unbelievable. We held them side by side and they looked exactly alike," Pawlawski said.

McCord was convicted in May of first-degree kidnapping, felony harassment and resisting arrest. Investigators said he accosted his ex-girlfriend at a bus stop, slammed her into a fence, kicked and choked her, then forced her into his vehicle.

With previous convictions for two counts of second-degree robbery in 1988 and five counts of first-degree robbery in 1991, he was sentenced June 13 to life in prison under the "three strikes" law.

McCord tried to hijack one vehicle Monday, but that driver noticed the gun was fake and drove away. The next driver McCord approached got out of his pickup truck and the inmate drove off in it. The truck was found parked near the Tacoma Mall about three miles away.

The fake gun was found in the road, officials said.