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Don Albert Stapel Jr.

Age : 59

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 08/17/2025

Location : 7500 block of Fox Road

City : Mears

County : Oceana

State : Michigan

Agency : Michigan State Police, Fifth District Investigative Response Team

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during arrest

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/17/2025, a Michigan State Police officer shot and killed 59-year-old Don Albert Stapel Jr. following an hours-long search in the Mears/Silver Lake area of Golden Township. The confrontation developed after a man was shot in the leg earlier that day and police identified Stapel as the person they were seeking in connection with that shooting.
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Michigan State Police troopers from the Hart Post began searching for Stapel around 1 p.m. Police described him as armed and believed he had gone into a wooded area. Residents in the 7500 block of Fox Road were ordered to shelter in place while a large police response searched the area.
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Oceana County Sheriff Craig Mast confirmed that the person shot earlier in the day had suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and was alive when the sheriff spoke with reporters. Michigan State Police subsequently released Stapel's name, age and booking photograph while asking the public to report sightings of him.
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The search eventually involved the Michigan State Police Emergency Support Team. Police located Stapel inside an outbuilding in the search area. At approximately 6:40 p.m., an officer fatally shot him during the police response.
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The initial and subsequent publicly available accounts provide very little description of the final encounter. Michigan State Police announced that Stapel had been “fatally wounded during the police response,” but the initial release did not describe what Stapel allegedly did immediately before the officer fired, whether Stapel pointed or fired a weapon, what commands officers gave, whether negotiations occurred, or whether less-lethal tactics were attempted.
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The circumstances immediately preceding the fatal gunfire are therefore particularly important records for this case. Michigan State Police assigned detectives from its Fifth District Investigative Response Team to investigate the shooting, even though the Hart Post whose personnel participated in the operation is part of MSP's Sixth District.
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There was substantial turmoil surrounding Stapel before the shooting. A trailer he co-owned at 7408 W. Fox Road had burned down six days earlier, on 08/11/2025. Sheriff Mast subsequently said investigators believed Stapel may have played a role in starting that fire, while expressly stopping short of saying he intentionally set it. Mast described the fire and the events of August 17 as interconnected.
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Court records reported by Oceana County Press also showed Stapel had three misdemeanor cases pending when police killed him: two counts of larceny under $200 and one trespassing charge stemming from incidents in October 2023, April 2025 and May 2025. He had been scheduled for a plea and sentencing hearing on 09/02/2025.
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The location is also significant because Michigan State Police had conducted another fatal armed-person operation in Oceana County only about 15 months earlier. On 05/25/2024, troopers responded near Skeels and Nichols roads to reports concerning 44-year-old Jonathan Jurecki, whom police described as acting erratically. Police said Jurecki went into the woods and later emerged carrying a wired device while threatening to kill people. MSP Emergency Support Team negotiators responded, and an EST member ultimately shot and killed him after police said officers perceived a threat.
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Thus, both the Jurecki and Stapel cases involved Michigan State Police Emergency Support Team operations in Oceana County, armed or allegedly dangerous men located after extended police responses, and fatal gunfire by police.
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The broader Michigan State Police review structure is also relevant. MSP policy sends fatal shootings involving its personnel to the Michigan Attorney General for independent criminal review after the investigative process. The Attorney General has publicly documented this procedure in other MSP fatal shootings, including the 2024 killing of Eric Michael Fiddler and the 2025 killing of Martez Britt.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Michigan State Police officer who shot Don Albert Stapel Jr. has not been publicly identified.
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Michigan State Police had another fatal shooting involving its Emergency Support Team in Oceana County in May 2024, when an EST member killed Jonathan Jurecki during an extended response involving negotiators.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/mears-residents-asked-to-shelter-in-place-while-msp-searches-for-a-man-believed-to-be-armed-in-the-woods
https://oceanacountypress.com/2025/08/17/shooting-suspect-shot-dead-by-officer/
https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/mears-armed-man-in-the-woods/69-1c565bc2-8eb3-418f-9d4e-2bdf00478c2f
https://oceanacountypress.com/2025/08/17/suspected-gunman-on-the-run-in-mears-had-previousl-charges-pending/
https://oceanacountypress.com/2025/08/18/suspected-gunman-shot-by-officer-may-have-caused-his-own-trailer-to-burn-down-just-days-prior/
https://www.9and10news.com/2024/05/26/suspect-shot-and-killed-after-police-say-he-threatened-to-kill-everybody/
https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2025/03/18/no-charges-for-msp-troopers-in-fatal-2024-shooting-of-fugitive-eric-michael-fiddler
https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2025/11/25/ag-reviews-fatal-may-2025-mdart