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'The law has let us down': Family of man killed by Olympia police want legislative change

Olympia police shot and killed Timothy Green in August while he was allegedly dealing with a mental health crisis.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The mother of a man killed by an Olympia Police Department (OPD) officer in August said she always worried her son would die at the hands of police.

“This very thing, I feared,” Millie Green said.

Her son, Timothy Green, was shot and killed by an Olympia police officer behind a Starbucks on Aug. 22.

According to officers, that morning they received 911 calls about Green acting erratically, first at an AM-PM, then at the Starbucks next door.

According to investigators, the officers were unable to get Green into custody and he walked into traffic when approached. When they tried using tasers to stop him, that didn’t work.

Investigators said the officers on the scene claimed Green came at one of the officers while holding a knife.

According to police, the Olympia officer fired and hit Green, who later died at a hospital.

Green’s mother said the 37-year-old, father of two, was diagnosed as bipolar when he was a teenager. She said he struggled with drug addiction and finding housing most of his adult life.

Green said she was worried about her son eventually being killed by police when he was in crisis. She said that's why she gathered signatures for Initiative-940 in 2017.

The initiative, later approved by voters, required additional de-escalation training for officers.

Green said she would have liked the officers who met her son that morning to have called for mental health professionals, rather than having to use deadly force.

The city of Olympia does have a crisis response team that deploys unarmed, mental health professionals to those in crisis. It is still unclear if they were called.

“The law has let us down,” Green said.

Her son’s death is being investigated by the Capital Metro Incident Investigation Team, a group of investigators from outside the OPD.

A spokesperson for the team said the incident remains under investigation and no additional details can be released.

Green said she does not have faith the investigation will be done fairly. Instead of civil unrest, Green said she hopes her son’s death will prompt legislative changes.

“I don’t want rioting going on, burning buildings, mom and pop shops being burned,” Green said. “The answer is, write your legislator.”

There are still many key pieces to the investigation that have yet to be released, like surveillance footage from the coffee shop and autopsy results.

"I forgive, but I will never forget that day," Green said. "How I felt as a mother of loss with one of my babies."

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