PORT ORCHARD, Wash. — A Washington state deputy has been cleared in a shootout that resulted in a man fatally shooting a Utah runaway and himself outside a Walmart store.
The investigation into the shootout revealed it was Anthony Allen Martinez who took 13-year-old runaway Astrid Valdivia's life.
Deputies were responding to a report of a suspicious person outside the Walmart in Port Orchard, Wash., on Jan. 23. Martinez, 31, began firing a gun at police, wounding two of them. Another deputy, Krista McDonald, returned fire, fracturing Martinez's femur.
As Valdivia ran to check on Martinez, the Washington State Patrol report states he shot and killed her, then fatally shot himself. The prosecutor in Kitsap County determined McDonald was justified in shooting Martinez because he had fired at officers first.
Valdivia, of Clearfield, was reported missing from her foster home in South Salt Lake the week before the shootout.
At the time of the shooting, Martinez had a court date scheduled in Davis County on kidnapping charges. He and Valdivia had run off to Sacramento together last year.
— Andrew Adams