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Ivan Zaytsev

Age : 41

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 07/02/2024

Location : Dead end of 5th Avenue Court East near 205th Street East

City : Spanaway

County : Pierce

State : Washington

Agency : Washington State Patrol; Pierce County Sheriff’s Department

Officer(s) :Stephen O’Brien; Chad Helligso; Timothy Piland; Sergeant Daren Witt

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during pursuit

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 07/02/2024, Washington State Patrol Trooper Stephen O’Brien and Pierce County Sheriff’s Department deputies Chad Helligso, Timothy Piland and Sgt. Daren Witt were identified by the Pierce County Force Investigation Team as the four officers involved in the fatal police encounter with 41-year-old Ivan Zaytsev in Spanaway. More than two years later, PCFIT has not publicly disclosed which of these officers fired, how many fired, how many rounds each officer discharged, which officer’s bullets struck Zaytsev, or whether all four officers classified as “involved” actually discharged their firearms.
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Zaytsev had left his Spanaway home in his van and was reportedly on his way to work when the sequence began at approximately 10:16 a.m. on State Route 512 near Steele Street in the Parkland area.
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According to PCFIT, an unidentified Washington State Patrol trooper attempted to stop Zaytsev for a “traffic violation.” Police have never publicly identified the specific traffic violation that caused the trooper to initiate the stop.
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PCFIT alleges that Zaytsev did not yield after the trooper activated emergency lights and siren and alleges that Zaytsev fired a gun toward the trooper while continuing to drive. PCFIT then says the trooper disengaged rather than continuing the direct pursuit, radioed WSP dispatch and provided the vehicle’s license plate, description and direction of travel.
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That opening sequence remains one of the most important unresolved portions of the case. Police allege that a motorist fired at a state trooper during an attempted traffic stop, yet the trooper then disengaged from the pursuit. No publicly released body-camera footage, dashboard-camera footage, patrol-car damage photographs, ballistics evidence, dispatch audio or detailed investigative report presently allows the public to independently evaluate that allegation.
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PCFIT itself expressly acknowledged that its description of this first encounter differed from information provided during the initial police briefing. Investigators said the revised details were discovered later on the evening of July 2. The public record does not explain what new evidence caused the account to change, who supplied that evidence, or precisely which portions of the original account were determined to be incorrect.
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The identity of this first WSP trooper has also never been clearly disclosed. PCFIT later identified O’Brien, Helligso, Piland and Witt collectively as the officers “involved” in the incident, but its public releases do not state whether O’Brien was the original trooper who attempted the SR 512 traffic stop or whether a fifth, still-unidentified trooper initiated the encounter and made the first allegation that Zaytsev fired at police.
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Some time later, according to PCFIT, a WSP trooper and a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy located Zaytsev’s van on State Route 7 near the 19000 block. PCFIT notably described those officers as initially “following” the vehicle rather than immediately pursuing it.
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Police allege that Zaytsev then stopped, fired toward the trooper and deputy and subsequently continued southbound on SR 7 while officers pursued him. PCFIT further alleges that Zaytsev periodically fired toward officers during the ensuing pursuit.
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These allegations describe at least a second distinct episode in which police say Zaytsev fired at law enforcement. As with the first reported shooting, however, the public investigative record still does not contain released body-camera or dashboard-camera footage showing Zaytsev firing, a public ballistics reconstruction identifying rounds allegedly fired from his van, an accounting of cartridge cases attributed to him, or a detailed report explaining which officer witnessed each alleged shot.
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The pursuit continued south and eventually entered the residential neighborhood where Zaytsev and his family lived. It ended at the dead end of 5th Avenue Court East near 205th Street East in Spanaway.
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Eyewitness information provides a potentially important contrast to the official pursuit narrative as Zaytsev reached the neighborhood. A bystander video was reportedly recorded and posted to Nextdoor and was viewed by multiple people before it was removed from public access. People who reportedly viewed that video described Zaytsev’s van as traveling normally as it approached his home rather than visibly racing through the neighborhood, and they did not report seeing a gun in Zaytsev’s hand immediately before the fatal police gunfire. The original Nextdoor recording has not yet been recovered for independent examination.
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This witness evidence does not by itself establish what occurred earlier on SR 512 or SR 7, and it does not establish that Zaytsev was unarmed during the final encounter. It is nevertheless potentially significant because it concerns the seconds or minutes immediately preceding the fatal shooting and may preserve an independent civilian view of Zaytsev’s arrival that is not dependent upon police accounts.
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PCFIT states that Zaytsev stopped his van, got out and continued firing and that there was then an “exchange of gunfire” between Zaytsev and multiple officers. That description remains an allegation from the investigating law-enforcement team. PCFIT has not publicly identified which officer saw Zaytsev fire after leaving the van, which officer observed a firearm in his hand, where each officer was positioned, precisely where Zaytsev was positioned or facing when police opened fire, or the sequence in which each weapon was discharged.
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The publicly released record also does not establish how many bullets struck Zaytsev or identify the firearm responsible for each wound. No complete scene reconstruction, autopsy findings, trajectory analysis or officer-by-officer ballistic accounting has been released through PCFIT’s public-update process.
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Witness and family accounts describe an extraordinary volume of police gunfire at the final scene. Zaytsev was reportedly heard outside yelling that he was injured while the shooting was occurring, and his wife yelled to police to stop shooting. Numerous shots were heard.
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Police gunfire struck property around the scene. Witness and family accounts report that multiple vehicles were struck and that bullets entered the Zaytsev family home. One police bullet reportedly traveled through the house into a downstairs bathroom, struck or damaged the toilet tank and caused water to continue running, flooding part of the residence.
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The damage to the family home is particularly important evidence because bullet trajectories through walls, vehicles and fixed objects can potentially establish officers’ firing positions and directions. The public PCFIT updates have not provided a trajectory reconstruction identifying which police weapon fired the rounds that entered the residence or other civilian property.
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Zaytsev’s wife and children were inside the family home during the final police operation. After the shooting, police used loudspeakers or bullhorns to order them out of the residence, and they were removed from the home while officers controlled the scene.
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Police and early news photographs also documented gunfire damage to law-enforcement vehicles. A complete forensic accounting should therefore be capable of distinguishing alleged shots fired by Zaytsev from rounds fired by O’Brien, Helligso, Piland, Witt and any other officers, including analysis of bullets or fragments recovered from police vehicles, civilian vehicles, the family home, Zaytsev’s van and Zaytsev himself.
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PCFIT publicly identified O’Brien, Helligso, Piland and Witt on 08/02/2024. It has never followed that disclosure with an officer-by-officer account explaining each officer’s actions or gunfire.
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The lack of released recordings is particularly consequential. As of August 2026, no body-camera or dashboard-camera footage documenting the alleged gunfire during the pursuit or the fatal confrontation has been released through PCFIT’s public-update process. No public video release has shown Zaytsev holding or firing a weapon.
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That absence does not establish that such recordings do not exist or that the police allegations are false. It means the most important claims in the official narrative remain unsupported by publicly reviewable video more than two years after Zaytsev was killed.
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PCFIT’s investigation has remained open for an extraordinary period. Weekly releases repeatedly stated “Active investigation. No updates” through 2024, throughout 2025 and well into 2026. On 07/17/2026, PCFIT reported that the public-information officer had checked with the investigating detective and that evidence was still pending with the Washington State crime laboratory.
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The most recent PCFIT release on 08/07/2026 again stated simply: “Active investigation. No updates.”
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Consequently, more than two years after Zaytsev’s death, there has been no announced prosecutorial charging decision, no complete public investigative report and no public accounting of the forensic evidence necessary to determine independently what occurred.
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The delay leaves fundamental questions unresolved: what traffic violation initiated the first attempted stop; who the first WSP trooper was; what evidence caused PCFIT to revise its original account; what physical evidence supports the allegation that Zaytsev fired at the first trooper; what evidence supports the later allegations of additional gunfire; whether a firearm attributed to Zaytsev was recovered and forensically tested; how many shots it had fired; which officers discharged weapons; how many rounds each officer fired; which bullets struck Zaytsev; and which officers’ bullets struck the surrounding vehicles and family residence.
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The reported Nextdoor recording is also an important unresolved evidence issue. Identifying the original person who made or uploaded the recording and obtaining the original file rather than a social-media copy could preserve metadata, timing and image quality that may be important in reconstructing Zaytsev’s final approach to his home.
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The family has not been provided with a publicly complete explanation of why Zaytsev was killed. PCFIT’s continuing designation of the case as active means the official investigative process itself has still not produced a final public answer.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Before Ivan Zaytsev was killed, two of the four officers PCFIT identified in his fatal encounter had already participated in four previous fatal police shootings between them.
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The four previous fatalities were:
Aaron Michael Westby — Chad Helligso — 2011
Michael Lee Bourquin — Chad Helligso — 02/01/2014
Justin Christopher Baker — Chad Helligso — 08/30/2016
Dwayne Michael Fields — Stephen O’Brien — 06/25/2021
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Ivan Zaytsev therefore became at least the fifth person killed in a police encounter involving members of this four-officer group.
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STEPHEN O’BRIEN — PRIOR FATAL SHOOTING :
Stephen O’Brien had previously shot and killed 34-year-old Dwayne Michael Fields in Fife on 06/25/2021.
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Fife police were pursuing a commercial yard truck that had been reported stolen. The Washington State Auditor’s later review noted that the truck was a large commercial vehicle that could not travel faster than approximately 35 mph. Officers attempted spike strips and other containment tactics before the truck entered a warehouse parking lot.
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During the final encounter, the truck moved backward in the direction of police vehicles and officers. Another officer attempted to use a Taser. O’Brien, positioned with a rifle, fired nine rounds into the truck’s cab.
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Fields was struck once in the back of the neck and three times in the upper back. He died at the scene.
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O’Brien declined to give investigators a voluntary statement explaining his decision to fire all nine rounds. The criminal investigation therefore proceeded without a complete voluntary account from the only officer who fired the fatal rifle shots.
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The Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office ultimately declined to charge O’Brien in May 2023. A decision not to file criminal charges is not the same as a judicial finding or jury verdict clearing the officer of all potential civil or administrative responsibility; prosecutors concluded that the available evidence did not support criminal prosecution.
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Of particular significance to the Zaytsev case, the Washington State Auditor later conducted an independent review of PCFIT’s investigation of Fields’ killing and found multiple failures to comply with state requirements.
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The Auditor found that PCFIT failed to include required bias questions in conflict-of-interest assessments; failed to require community representatives and one investigator to complete conflict assessments; improperly allowed an uninvolved Tacoma police officer to access the investigative file; failed to give Fields’ family and community representatives advance notice of all public releases; and failed to keep Fields’ family informed of significant developments.
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The Auditor also found no documentation establishing that witness officers had been ordered not to discuss the shooting before giving statements to investigators. Those witness officers were not interviewed until approximately two and a half weeks after Fields was killed.
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The Fields investigation is directly pertinent to Zaytsev because it involved the same regional force-investigation system and the same WSP trooper now identified in another fatal encounter. PCFIT’s documented failures in the Fields investigation do not prove that the Zaytsev investigation has been mishandled, but they provide a concrete, independent reason to scrutinize PCFIT’s evidence preservation, conflicts, officer interviews, family communication and investigative delays carefully.
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Zaytsev is O’Brien’s second publicly identified fatal police encounter.
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CHAD HELLIGSO — THREE PRIOR FATAL SHOOTINGS :
Deputy Chad Helligso had already participated in three fatal police shootings before Zaytsev was killed.
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AARON MICHAEL WESTBY — 2011
In October 2011, Helligso fatally shot 39-year-old Aaron Michael Westby in Tacoma while investigating a vehicle believed to possibly be stolen. Pierce County prosecutors later concluded that Helligso’s shooting was legally justified.
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MICHAEL LEE BOURQUIN — 02/01/2014
Helligso shot and killed 21-year-old Michael Lee Bourquin during a traffic stop in the Parkland/Spanaway area.
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Helligso and another deputy stopped a pickup in which Bourquin was a passenger. Officers knew Bourquin had outstanding felony warrants and intended to arrest him.
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According to the official police account, a physical struggle followed and a fixed-blade knife fell to the ground. Police alleged that Bourquin then sprayed Helligso and the other deputy directly in the face with bear spray, impairing their vision.
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Helligso fired seven handgun rounds at Bourquin. Bourquin was struck multiple times and died.
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Pierce County prosecutors concluded that the shooting was legally justified.
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Bourquin’s family subsequently filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against Helligso and Pierce County alleging excessive force and seeking approximately $20 million in damages. A federal judge granted summary judgment to Helligso and the county in 2017, concluding that the evidence did not permit a reasonable jury to find the fatal force unconstitutional under the circumstances.
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JUSTIN CHRISTOPHER BAKER — 08/30/2016
Helligso participated in another fatal shooting approximately two and a half years later.
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Pierce County deputies responded to the home of 36-year-old Justin Christopher Baker after reports that Baker was outside with a running chainsaw, had threatened to harm himself and had threatened responding deputies.
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Police alleged that Baker continued holding and revving the chainsaw and advanced toward deputies after a Taser was ineffective.
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Helligso and deputies David Sutherland, Brian Coburn, Robert Blumenschine and Roger Fuller opened fire.
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The Pierce County Medical Examiner documented 27 gunshot wounds to Baker’s body. Public records do not establish how many of those wounds resulted from Helligso’s weapon individually.
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Pierce County prosecutors subsequently concluded that the five deputies’ fatal use of force was legally justified.
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By July 2024, Helligso therefore had been involved in fatal police shootings in 2011, 2014 and 2016 before becoming one of four officers PCFIT identified in Zaytsev’s death.
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TIMOTHY PILAND AND DAREN WITT :
PCFIT identified Deputy Timothy Piland and Sgt. Daren Witt as the other two officers involved in Zaytsev’s fatal encounter.
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No previous fatal shooting comparable to the documented O’Brien and Helligso cases has presently been established for Piland or Witt in the publicly accessible records reviewed for this report.
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Their individual actions in Zaytsev’s death remain unknown because PCFIT has not disclosed whether Piland or Witt fired, how many rounds either discharged or whether bullets from either officer struck Zaytsev or surrounding property.
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PIERCE COUNTY FORCE INVESTIGATION TEAM — PRIOR DOCUMENTED INVESTIGATIVE FAILURES :
PCFIT is not merely an incidental background agency in this case. It controls the evidence and investigation from which any future prosecutor, family member or civil attorney will have to determine what occurred.
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The Washington State Auditor’s independent findings in the Dwayne Fields investigation establish documented weaknesses in precisely the areas important to an officer-involved death investigation: conflict-of-interest screening, control of the investigative file, separation and management of witness officers, communication with the family and transparency concerning major developments.
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Those findings deserve particular attention here because the Zaytsev investigation has now remained open for more than two years and involves Stephen O’Brien, the same WSP trooper whose earlier fatal shooting was the subject of the deficient PCFIT investigation audited by the state.
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PIERCE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT — CONTEMPORANEOUS ACCOUNTABILITY PROBLEMS :
At the time of the Zaytsev killing, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department was still emerging from a major controversy involving then-Sheriff Ed Troyer and questions concerning truthfulness, decision-making and departmental accountability.
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The controversy arose from Troyer’s January 2021 encounter with Black newspaper carrier Sedrick Altheimer. The Washington Attorney General later criminally charged Troyer with false reporting and making a false or misleading statement to a public servant. A jury acquitted Troyer of those criminal charges in December 2022.
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Separate from the criminal case, Pierce County commissioned an independent administrative investigation. A Pierce County Council member who reviewed the completed 48-page investigation publicly characterized its conclusions as “serious and disturbing” and said the report demonstrated that Troyer had been seriously lacking in integrity and sound decision-making during the Altheimer encounter.
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The council member supported referring the matter to prosecutors for possible Brady-list consideration, referring Troyer to the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission and establishing an independent ombudsman for the Sheriff’s Department.
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Those findings were distinct from the subsequent criminal acquittal and concerned institutional integrity and oversight rather than whether prosecutors could prove criminal charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
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The Altheimer civil litigation was later resolved by Pierce County.
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This history does not establish misconduct by Helligso, Piland or Witt in the Zaytsev shooting. It does establish that the Sheriff’s Department involved in Zaytsev’s death had recently undergone an extraordinary public controversy involving the credibility and judgment of its elected leader and demands for stronger independent oversight.
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WASHINGTON STATE PATROL — RELEVANT ACCOUNTABILITY CONTEXT :
For Washington State Patrol, the most directly relevant institutional history is the investigation of O’Brien’s previous fatal shooting of Dwayne Fields.
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O’Brien’s 2021 killing of Fields was investigated within the same PCFIT system now handling Zaytsev’s death, and the Washington State Auditor subsequently identified concrete failures in the independence, access controls, conflicts process and family communication surrounding that investigation.
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The combination is unusually relevant: O’Brien participated in a fatal shooting in 2021; the state auditor later documented defects in the investigation of that shooting; prosecutors declined criminal charges; and O’Brien was then identified in another fatal encounter in 2024 whose PCFIT investigation remains unfinished more than two years later.
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KEY UNRESOLVED EVIDENTIARY QUESTIONS :
The following questions remain central to determining what actually happened to Ivan Zaytsev:
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What exact traffic violation caused the first WSP trooper to attempt the stop?
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Who was the first WSP trooper?
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Was that trooper Stephen O’Brien or another officer?
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What did the original police briefing say, and precisely why did investigators later change the opening account?
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What recording, physical evidence or witness evidence supports the first trooper’s allegation that Zaytsev fired at him?
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Was the first trooper’s patrol vehicle struck by a bullet, and if so, was that projectile recovered and forensically compared to a firearm attributed to Zaytsev?
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Why did the first trooper disengage immediately after the alleged gunfire?
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What did that trooper tell dispatch, word for word, and how did the characterization of the incident transmitted over police radio affect the response of the officers who subsequently located Zaytsev?
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What WSP and Pierce County officers heard those broadcasts before joining the pursuit?
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What evidence supports the allegation that Zaytsev subsequently stopped and again fired at the WSP trooper and Pierce County deputy on SR 7?
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What evidence supports the allegation that he periodically fired from the van during the pursuit?
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Was a firearm recovered from Zaytsev or his van?
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Where exactly was it recovered?
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How many cartridges had been fired from that weapon?
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Were cartridge cases recovered from the van, roadways or final scene?
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Were fingerprints, DNA and gunshot-residue tests performed?
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What do the ballistics results still pending or recently completed at the state crime laboratory show?
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Who fired at the final scene?
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How many rounds did O’Brien fire?
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How many rounds did Helligso fire?
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How many rounds did Piland fire?
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How many rounds did Witt fire?
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Did any other officer fire?
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Which bullets struck Zaytsev?
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How many wounds did Zaytsev sustain and what were their trajectories?
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Was Zaytsev facing police, facing sideways or facing toward his home when the fatal rounds struck him?
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What officer actually saw a firearm in Zaytsev’s hand immediately before the shooting?
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What officer actually saw Zaytsev fire after leaving the van?
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Which police rounds struck civilian vehicles?
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Which police rounds entered the Zaytsev family home?
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Can the projectile that traveled into the downstairs bathroom be recovered or matched to a specific officer’s weapon?
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Does the original Nextdoor recording still exist on the recording witness’s phone, cloud backup or account history?
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Does that original recording corroborate or contradict police descriptions of Zaytsev’s final approach to his home?
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What do WSP dash cameras, body cameras or in-car recording systems show?
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What do Pierce County deputies’ body cameras and vehicle recordings show?
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What do CAD records, radio traffic, MDT messages and officer GPS data establish about the first attempted stop, disengagement, subsequent re-engagement and final pursuit?
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Until those records are produced and reconciled, the public record does not permit a reliable independent determination of whether every element of the police narrative is accurate.

SOURCE LINKS :

CASE — CURRENT PCFIT INVESTIGATION :
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/160330/PCFIT-Press-Release-August-7-2026-2418400941
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/159799/PCFIT-Press-Release-July-17-2026-2418400941
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/159960/PCFIT-Press-Release-July-24-2026-2418400941
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/156746/PCFIT-Press-Release-March-27-2026-2418400941
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/139376/PCFIT-Press-Release-August-9-2024
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/139218/PCFIT-Press-Release-August-2-2024
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/138866/PCFIT-Press-Release-July-19-2024
https://blog.piercecountywa.gov/pcsdblotter/2024/07/03/suspect-shoots-at-trooper-prior-to-deputy-involved-shooting-in-spanaway/
https://www.king5.com/article/news/crime/officers-exchange-gunfire-car-chase/281-6e7dc307-c70a-4eab-8022-e3a9dec7181f
https://komonews.com/news/local/pierce-county-spanaway-officer-involved-shooting-ois-sheriffs-office-deputies-police-officers-washington-state-patrol-troopers-shooting-gunshot-shot-freeway-i5-tacoma-suspect-condition-law-enforcement
https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/suspect-killed-i-5
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STEPHEN O’BRIEN — PRIOR FATAL SHOOTING / DWAYNE MICHAEL FIELDS :
https://portal.sao.wa.gov/ReportSearch/Home/ViewReportFile?arn=1035784&isFinding=false&sp=false
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CHAD HELLIGSO — PRIOR FATAL SHOOTINGS / AARON MICHAEL WESTBY, MICHAEL LEE BOURQUIN, JUSTIN CHRISTOPHER BAKER :
https://www.kiro7.com/news/south-sound-news/familys-suit-claiming-excessive-force-in-fatal-shooting-dismissed/547028495/
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PIERCE COUNTY SHERIFF / ED TROYER ACCOUNTABILITY :
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/CivicSend/ViewMessage/message/156281
https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/jury-finds-pierce-county-sheriff-not-guilty-false-reporting-charges