Pierce County deputy died of a heart attack. Should he be memorialized at WA capital?

Yahoo

13-02-2025

Pierce County Sheriff's Office deputy Daryl Shuey had made nine trips between his patrol vehicle and a dumpster when he collapsed to the ground in a Pizza Hut parking lot in Spanaway.
Shuey, a 26-year veteran of the department, died of a heart attack on Nov. 10, 2020, as he disposed of a significant amount of garbage recovered in a stolen vehicle. The items, including two Airsoft guns and miscellaneous items such as clothing, soda cans and electronic equipment, didn't belong to the vehicle's owner, according to police records and former Sheriff Ed Troyer.
Shuey's unexpected death — he would have turned 62 last month — left behind two teenagers and a wife in Gig Harbor who, in an interview, described her late husband as a great family man, warm-hearted and cool-headed.
'I mean, that made him such a great cop, 'cause he didn't get riled up,' Karen Shuey said. 'He just was very calm and you can count on him for anything. He's just so steady.'
Daryl Shuey's sudden passing was considered a line-of-duty death by the federal Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program and the state, entitling his wife and children to financial benefits, according to documents that Karen Shuey shared with The News Tribune.
Law enforcement memorials in Washington, D.C., Spokane and Pierce County recognize the fallen deputy.
One group will not.
The Behind the Badge Foundation is a state-contracted private nonprofit which created and maintains the Washington State Law Enforcement Memorial in Olympia. The foundation declined to accept Daryl Shuey after determining his death didn't meet its criteria, frustrating his widow who's been advocating for her late husband's inclusion.
As a result of the nonprofit's decision, Daryl Shuey's isn't among the more than 340 names carved into the memorial wall at the state capitol. He'd be the 40th member of a law enforcement agency in Pierce County to be recognized on the wall, which honors officers killed in the line of duty.
Beyond starting and funding the memorial dedicated to the public in 2006, Behind the Badge provides broad assistance to families and law enforcement agencies in the aftermath of a line-of-duty death or serious injury, according to its website. It supported Karen Shuey after her husband died. The nonprofit receives certain proceeds from the sales of Washington law enforcement memorial license plates.
Behind the Badge declined a request to comment for this story due to its anticipation that Karen Shuey might be preparing to sue it, but the foundation recently stood by its exclusion of Daryl Shuey.
Under the nonprofit's criteria, natural-cause deaths don't meet the line-of-duty standard, even if on the job, unless 'the death arises out of non-routine stressful or strenuous physical exertion,' board president Susan Dunn wrote to Karen Shuey in December.
The letter, which Behind the Badge provided to The News Tribune, reported that the nonprofit's board had drawn the same conclusion in its final review of Daryl Shuey's case as it did after first assessing the appropriateness of his inclusion in October 2022.
'While no one was able to determine the specifics of the items being disposed of by Deputy Shuey, as the items had not been tagged or processed as evidence and/or property, private video from the site of the dumpster showing Deputy Shuey moving the items does not lead to a conclusion that the process was strenuous,' Dunn wrote.
Occasionally lifting and moving objects, she added, is a routine part of a deputy's job.
It's a finding that was contradicted in October 2022 by a 'statement of circumstance' written by Troyer, the ex-sheriff who didn't seek re-election last year. In the statement, which was shared by Karen Shuey with The News Tribune, Troyer wrote that Daryl Shuey's actions at the time of his death were not routine and that he strenuously exerted himself by making nine trips with heavy trash over the course of about four minutes.
'For consistency, he should be allowed to be on' the wall, Troyer said in an interview.
Behind the Badge's conclusion hasn't sat right with Karen Shuey, 54, who unsuccessfully appealed. She described the nonprofit's criteria as vague and their process as inconsistent, noting others who have suffered life-ending heart attacks are memorialized on the wall.
They include a Washington State Patrol officer who died hiking in a remote area while investigating a marijuana grow operation and a Kent police officer who passed in a hospital parking lot after scheduling a doctor's appointment to address chest pain and shortness of breath.
Out of five heart-attack deaths in Washington state that qualified for the Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefits Act of 2003, each name except her husband's made it onto the wall, according to Karen Shuey.
'It does not make sense,' she said.
Behind the Badge's Memorial Committee, a 13-member body when fully staffed, is supposed to include an officer if there's only reasonable doubt about whether their death was in the line of duty or if an officer's department certifies that their death was in the line of duty and there's no conflicting information found by the committee, according to its criteria in place when Daryl Shuey died.
In her December letter to Karen Shuey, Dunn explained that Behind the Badge considers each case independently.
'Please know we respect your husband's service to the citizens of Pierce County and your dedication to his memory,' Dunn wrote.
Former top Pierce County Sheriff's Office officials, others in law enforcement groups and some state lawmakers support Karen Shuey's advocacy.
'I don't know anybody who doesn't want Daryl on the wall beyond Behind the Badge and I'm not sure why,' retired PCSO chief of staff Mike Blair said in an interview. 'I don't understand it.'
Even so, Karen Shuey acknowledged that there are people inside the department who hold fast to the idea that a line-of-duty death is synonymous with murder or violence, which she said she respected because she didn't know what it was like to be a cop and witness the difference between those and natural deaths.
But she said she struggles with the notion that someone can appear to meet the criteria to be memorialized but be rejected due to what she considered a personal feeling.
'That's where it got blurred,' she said.
Supporters include Frank Kampsen, the founder of Behind the Badge who's no longer on the board but still assists with fundraisers. Kampsen told The News Tribune he had voted for Daryl Shuey's inclusion but was overridden by a majority amid concerns about whether dumping garbage warranted a line-of-duty determination.
'My goal was to give the benefit of the doubt and lead towards inclusion on these kinds of incidents,' he said, noting that the nonprofit undertook painstaking efforts to ensure each name on the wall belonged there. 'We're trying to do the right thing. Nobody wants to deny.'
On Tuesday, Senate Bill 5743 was introduced by state Sen. Deb Krishnadasan, D-Gig Harbor, that if passed would add Daryl Shuey to the memorial. Retroactively applied to deaths since 2020, the bill would automatically include on the wall any officer ruled as dying in the line of duty under the Hometown Heroes Act, according to the bill's text.
'I am working with Karen Shuey and the entire Shuey family to put forth a bill honoring Dep. Shuey and his legacy,' Krishnadasan said in a statement Tuesday.
While Karen Shuey's fight inspired the bill, her story also revealed concerns from within her support group about whether one decision-making body should have sole control over who is memorialized on the Olympia wall. It's a sensitive and divisive subject. A previous legislative push for change turned out to be controversial and appeared to open the door for calling into question Daryl Shuey's integrity.
House Bill 2442 was entertained last year. It would have established a committee of eight groups, including Behind the Badge, to decide whose names should be engraved on the state memorial. The wider approach to selection would have been similar to the process for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, where Daryl Shuey is honored.
It would be 'logical' for the state's memorial to mirror the national wall in that way, according to Brenda Donner, who previously served on the national names committee.
Donner, who supports Karen Shuey's efforts and is the ex-national president of Concerns of Police Survivors, told The News Tribune that having multiple organizations weigh in on inclusion would lead to collaboration that breeds discussion.
Former state Rep. Spencer Hutchins, R-Gig Harbor, who sponsored HB 2442, said during a bill hearing in February 2024 that the proposed shift wasn't an indictment on Behind the Badge but simply an effort to broaden decision-making authority.
The bill didn't go anywhere after its hearing. In an interview, Hutchins said that the legislation wouldn't have guaranteed Daryl Shuey's inclusion on the memorial — although he supports adding his name — but would have created a more open and representative process.
'It was clear that the bill that I put forward didn't have universal appeal, and there was some controversy around it,' he said.
In particular, the attempt to expand decision-making ended up pitting families of fallen officers against each other. Brian Johnston, Behind the Badge's executive director, said that more than 1,500 people signed in opposition. Two opponents argued that the bill would threaten the wall's integrity by lessening the criteria and that supporters had misunderstood Behind the Badge's process.
Katie DeRosier, the wife of Cowlitz County sheriff's deputy Justin DeRosier who was shot and killed in 2019, told the House budget committee that she was speaking in opposition to the bill on behalf of her family and others who found solace in the compassionate support offered by Behind the Badge.
The nonprofit's committee meticulously ensured that names added to the wall, which stands as a solemn tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice, were deserving of the highest honor, according to Katie DeRosier.
'As House Bill 2442 is currently written, the proposed re-designation threatens the wall's integrity, potentially compromising the sacrifices these heroes made,' she said. 'The perceived leniency of inclusion it offers jeopardizes the purpose of the memorial, a disservice to those already engraved in its surface.'
Speaking directly afterward, Jennifer Bautista offered her support of the proposed legislation on behalf of Bellevue police detective Thomas Wray, who died of a heart attack after searching for a wanted felon in 2002. Wray is not named on the state memorial.
'After dedicating 24 years to the police force, my father's final days were spent relentlessly pursuing a perpetrator, upholding his duty until his last breath,' Bautista said, adding that she sought consistency in the memorial name-selection process.
Six others testified in support of the bill, including Karen Shuey and three other family members of Wray.
The morning that the bill was being heard, Karen Shuey said, a rumor circulated within the House budget committee that her husband had been engaging in nefarious behavior at the time of his death. While she didn't want to specify the rumor, it was a suggestion of wrongdoing that she flatly rejected — as did Troyer.
'That is 100% absolutely false,' Troyer said. 'We don't know who started it.'
The items recovered from the stolen vehicle were not evidence, according to Troyer, who said it was trash that most deputies would have left behind and that Daryl Shuey had been doing the vehicle's owner a favor. No police reports or detectives offered anything that indicated otherwise, he added.
'He was a good, consistent, hard-working deputy,' Troyer said. 'He never had any bad issues at work.'
Hutchins acknowledged recalling hearing 'some rumors' but nothing specific and said they had no bearing on the work he was doing. Likewise, Rep. Michelle Caldier, R-Gig Harbor, told The News Tribune that she had also heard rumors but wouldn't engage them and hadn't seen any substantiation.
'This is Olympia, so it's rumor central,' Caldier said.
In Karen Shuey's opinion, the gossip was detrimental to the bill. For the Washington Fraternal Order of Police, who supported the legislation, it was concerning. After it was learned in February 2024 that the bill didn't move forward, the WAFOP put out a statement expressing disappointment and also criticizing the allegations.
'More troubling are rumors that some lawmakers have heard that the late Deputy Shuey was a corrupt officer or engaged in some sort of illegal activity at the time of his line-of-duty death,' the statement said. 'This is patently false, and it is despicable to sully the reputation of a dedicated, 26-year peace officer.'
James Schrimpsher, who works in legislative affairs for the WAFOP, told The News Tribune that the organization had vetted Daryl Shuey's background and found nothing to believe he had done anything but go to work and have a heart attack after a strenuous situation.
For roughly four years, Karen Shuey has sought to enshrine her late husband's legacy at the state Capitol.
In interviews, multiple people described her tenacity.
'Her heart and soul is in this,' Hutchins said.
County Executive Ryan Mello said he had spoken to Daryl Shuey's family and offered deep sympathy and gratitude. Mello, who backed efforts to include the late deputy's name on the county memorial, told The News Tribune that he also gave suggestions to the family for potentially navigating the state issue.
Newly sworn-in Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank responded to a request to weigh in.
'I feel terrible for Mrs. Shuey's loss,' Swank said in a statement. 'We are currently working through the process, and when everything is resolved, I will have further comment.'
Meanwhile, Karen Shuey doesn't appear intent on giving up.
'It means everything to me because my husband, he worked at the Pierce County Sheriff's Department for almost 27 years. He was faithful, he showed up, he did his job, he did it well,' she said. 'My kids need to be able to say, 'There's my dad, his death meant something.''
The difficult nature of Daryl Shuey's long-time work in law enforcement had affected his health, his wife said.
Karen Shuey said her broader aim is to make the state memorial names process fair and consistent for all who apply. If her husband's name is ultimately added, she described feeling as if she would finally be able to move on.
'That would be the beginning of my second life,' she said. 'I have another life. It's just waiting. I haven't been able to live it because this has consumed me.'