By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer announced today he will not file any criminal charges in connection with the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Travis Shive by a neighbor in Salkum in May.
“While the loss of life is tragic under any circumstances, it appears that Mr. Ritter acted in self defense,” Meyer stated in a formal news release today.
Ritter is Jack L. Ritter, 56, who told deputies he felt threatened because Shive had been on his front porch ranting, accusing him of shooting his dog and refused to leave.
Shive was unarmed, but Meyer said witnesses indicated Shive was the aggressor in the situation.
It happened the evening of May 10 on the 200 block of Stowell Road, about a half block from the Salkum Super market.
Shive had gotten a phone call telling him his dog had been shot by someone in the white house and arrived on his ATV to Ritter’s front yard, according to Meyer. He was at the wrong house, according to Meyer.
Ritter came out of the back of his house armed with .380 semi-automatic handgun, telling Shive to get off his property, he didn’t shoot his dog and Shive was about to go, but then went at Ritter, according to authorities.
Shive died from a gunshot wound that entered his abdomen and traveled into his chest. He was also shot in the left shoulder.
Ritter was afraid for his safety, Meyer said.
In the decline letter Meyer wrote to Lewis County Sheriff’s Office detective Kevin Engelbertson, Meyer wrote that the facts in the matter do not support criminal charges against Ritter.
At trial Ritter would claim self defense and the state would not be able to rebut the claim based on the available evidence, Meyer wrote.
Meyer said in cases where it’s a close call, that’s when he concludes a jury should decide.
He contrasted it with the Ronald Brady case of 2010 when Brady was charged with first-degree murder for shooting an unarmed suspected burglar outside a house he owned in Onalaska. Brady was convicted by a jury of a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison.
“The victim in that case was running away when shot,” Meyer said. “In this case, the victim was engaged in a struggle for a gun.”
The law is clear that a person can act in defense of themselves or others, Meyer said.
“But whether those actions are reasonable are going to be analyzed and scrutinized,” he said.
He said these kinds of cases are very fact specific.
“There isn’t a clear cut, this-is-the-line rule,” Meyer said. “Sometimes it’s going to turn on minute facts.”
More to come
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For background, read “Investigation continues into deadly Salkum dispute” from Wednesday May 14, 2014, here

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