Bruce Coval Meneley, a former Navy doctor with ties to a residence in Hansville, Kitsap County, was shot and killed by Seattle police officers.
He had a forty-year career with the military.
At the Double Tree Hotel in Tukwila, members of the task force were carrying out a sting operation to apprehend a suspect who believed he was going to see two adolescent girls for illicit reasons. Three cops’ body cameras captured the shooting, which occurred during an operation to confront Meneley, who was wanted on charges related to children.
Body-cam footage shows Meneley reaching for a gun when he realized he was “stung.” Police fired 30 shots.
The Seattle Police Department heads the state-wide Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
Meneley, a doctor and Navy captain, came out against the mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in an interview with the New York Times in 2016. In addition, he oversaw the international medical force in charge of NATO Role 3 in Afghanistan.
The state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce was reportedly looking into Meneley. Chief Adrian Diaz of the police department said the suspect thought he was meeting up with two females, one aged seven and the other eleven.
A gunshot wounded one police officer’s leg. The officer was not sent to the hospital due to the slight nature of the injury. Everyone else escaped the showdown unharmed.
In 2017, during a human trafficking/prostitution raid in Bremerton, Meneley was apprehended and charged. Deputies from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office caught up with Meneley after detectives fooled him into thinking they were a prostitute online. Meneley asked that he be allowed to perform with the prostitute unprotected and negotiated a $110 fee. Two other stings turned up Meneley’s phone number, according to deputies.
According to documents from 2017, Meneley confessed to police that he had been arrested for a similar crime in Texas many years before. He was sent to education and community service at that time.
