Arrest made in Pasco officer attack that ended in a deadly shooting
A man was jailed Tuesday in connection with stabbing two Pasco police officers in an attack that left an 18-year-old dead.
Detectives with the Tri-City Special Investigations Unit arrested Martin Mendoza, 24, on assault charges.
The unit is investigating the officer-involved shooting on North 18th Drive on Dec. 14, Pasco police said on Facebook.
About 15 minutes after officers were called to the home that night, two Pasco officers had been stabbed and Alejandro Betancourt-Mendoza, 18, was shot and killed.
The officers were treated and released to recover at home. They were placed on administrative leave along with a third officer as part of standard procedures while the shooting is investigated.
Mendoza was booked into the Franklin County jail on warrants for two counts of first-degree assault and one count of second-degree assault.
Few details have been released about what happened at the home. The SIU team did not release any more information about how Martin Mendoza is connected to the case, referring questions to Pasco police.
Pasco police have not been involved in the investigation and said they did not have any more information about the arrest.
The special investigation unit includes specially trained detectives from local police agencies.
Dec. 14 confrontation
Pasco Officers Jason Griffin, Kierra Peoples and Ben Boykin were the first to respond to 2111 N. 18th Drive following a call from a resident at 8:09 p.m. Records show Betancourt-Mendoza lived at the home.
After the confrontation, Peoples and Boykin were driving themselves to the hospital with knife wounds while their colleagues performed CPR on Betancourt-Mendoza, who had several gunshot wounds.
Peoples was bleeding from her face but still managed to apply a tourniquet to Boykin’s arm and drove the two of them to Lourdes Medical Center in Pasco.
“Myself and 92 are driving to Lourdes. ... I’ve been stabbed, same as (Officer Kierra) Peoples. ... I’m bleeding pretty bad,” Boykin relayed to dispatchers on the two-minute drive.
Betancourt-Mendoza had a criminal history that included the previous knife attack in front of his home, and the theft of hemp plants from a field north of Pasco.
He’d been in Juvenile Court just three weeks earlier though he’d turned 18 in September.
Court records show Martin Mendoza has previous convictions for possessing cocaine and methamphetamine in 2016 and 2017.
This story was originally published December 24, 2019 at 12:53 PM.