Prosecutors: Bellevue man was in ‘sniper's perch' when police killed him

King County public-integrity prosecutors have concluded that Bellevue police were justified when they shot a man armed with a sword and high-powered air rifles last summer.

The Aug. 8 shooting death of Patrick Sathyanathan, 60, by a police sniper was deemed to fall within the law governing police use of deadly force. Sathyanathan had approached a neighbor with a sword and, after police arrived, fired on officers with a large-caliber, high-powered air rifle. Bullets struck neighbors' homes, perforated a garage door and patrol cars, and broke the side-view mirror on the department's Bearcat" armored vehicle, according to an investigation conducted by the King County Independent Force Investigative Team.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Joe Marchesano said the projectiles were capable of inflicting serious bodily injury, and that Sathyanathan fired the weapon from a "sniper's perch" inside his town house.

Police had been called to the house before and knew he had powerful air rifles in the residence. An investigation showed Sathyanathan had unsuccessfully attempted to buy a gun in Florida and was known to have mental health issues. An autopsy revealed Sathyanathan was legally intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level of .11%.

Marchesano said the prosecutor's office was initially skeptical about the use of deadly force.

"Our initial reaction was, 'It's an air gun?'" he said. That skepticism melted away after he did some research on the type of weapons Sathyanathan had armed himself with.

He had eight air rifles in his home, some of them capable of firing a .35-caliber, hollow-point projectile at velocities approaching 1,000 feet per second, comparable to some firearms that use gunpowder as a propellant.

Officers responded to Sathyanathan's home around 8:30 p.m. and attempted to contact him after he had approached a neighbor with a sword strapped to his back. At that point, Marchesano said, officers had no luck contacting him.

As more officers arrived, Sathyanathan fired his air gun - the crack of the projectiles can be clearly heard on body-camera video. Those initial shots were fired over the officers' heads, but struck houses and a Bellevue police cruiser, according to the investigation.

The Bellevue SWAT team, along with an armored vehicle, arrived shortly before 9 p.m.

For the next three hours, police attempted to persuade Sathyanathan to surrender, since officers now had probable cause to arrest him for a gross misdemeanor involving threats. Later, they determined the use of the air rifle constituted a felony.

Sathyanathan was the subject of at least one "extreme risk protection order," which prohibited him from owning a firearm. But that did not apply to air rifles, Marchesano said.

The order noted that Sathyanathan, who had been issued a concealed-carry permit, showed increasing "harassing and violent behavior toward the public" in 2018, displaying a firearm at a restaurant, a bar and during a doctor's appointment. He was removed from the Microsoft campus in Redmond - his former place of employment - in August of that year after showing up with alcohol on his breath and stating he was skilled with firearms.

Seeking to restore his firearms rights in 2024, Sathyanathan said in a letter to the judge he had never threatened anyone with a gun.

Around midnight, the SWAT team changed its posture from containment to a "condition two" alert, giving officers the ability to use deadly force if Sathyanathan posed an articulable imminent threat. Officers deployed flash-bang devices and a chemical irritant in an attempt to drive him out of the home, but to no avail, the investigation showed.

When Sathyanathan showed himself again, armed with an air rifle, police sniper Matthew Garner fired a single shot, hitting Sathyanathan in the head, Marchesano said.

The night he was killed, Sathyanathan broadcast on a ham radio frequency that he was surrounded by "Bellevue pigs."

"Looks like I'm going to be killed soon," he said.

"They tried to get him to surrender," Marchesano said. "His mental health was a concern.

State law requires that officers render immediate aid to victims of police violence. Bellevue officers breached the front door of the home, but backed out almost immediately after seeing several items - propane tanks, wires and electronic equipment - they worried could be improvised explosive devices.

Attempts to send a robot into the house were thwarted by clutter. Medics entered the home just before 3 a.m. to find Sathyanathan dead, Marchesano said.

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This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 11:41 PM.