Enumclaw Woman Shot by Deputy Now in Jail on $500,000 Bail

An Enumclaw woman shot by deputies in late July is now in the King County Jail with bail set at $500,000.

Asenka Wilber, 43, is charged with three counts of second-degree assault, Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff’s Department said today.

In another officer-involved shooting, the death of Eric Sampson of Enumclaw is scheduled to go before a review board this month, his mother has said. The inquest was ordered by King County Executive Dow Constantine in May. Eric Sampson, 19, was killed when three deputies shot him while he was wielding a machete last March.

All four deputies involved in both shootings are back at work after spending some time on administrative leave, Urquhart said.

Wilber was involved in a standoff July 29 when deputies were called to a house in the 37300 block of 244th Avenue Southeast when a woman was reportedly breaking windows. The reporting neighbor said that the woman and her husband were having marital problems.

Deputies tried talking to the woman but she retreated to a back bedroom and fired off a round from a shotgun. The Sheriff's Office SWAT Team and negotiators tried to talk to the woman all afternoon. She would not answer her cell phone or a “throw phone” tossed into the house. A robot searched the house, but she could not be found.

SWAT deputies entered the home and were unable to find her. A half-hour later, a deputy dropped down into the home’s crawl space and was confronted by the woman holding a shotgun. After several commands to drop the weapon, the deputy fired, and the woman was hit at least once. She was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with non-life threatening injuries, according to a sheriff’s news release.

The shooting will be reviewed by the Sheriff's Office Shooting Review Board to make sure policies were followed. The 42-year-old deputy has been with the Sheriff’s Office for 16 years.

In the Eric Sampson shooting, Urquhart said as soon as the inquest decision is made information will be released. After that, the prosecutor’s office will review the investigation, as well as the results of the inquest, to determine if state law was followed. The shooting review board will then review everything, Urquhart said in an email.

Eric Sampson was shot multiple times March 19 in a confrontation involving a machete and three officers on a rural road in the 28500 block of Retreat-Kanaskat Road. Sampson reportedly was pulled over by Buckley police for outstanding warrants. He was compliant until he informed that he was under arrest for those warrants. Sampson drove off, pursued by law enforcement.

Deputies located him on a road in the Cumberland area later that night carrying a large machete. Sampson reportedly walked up to a deputy's car and slashed the hood with the weapon. He was shot with Tasers first. When that didn’t subdue him, three deputies fired multiple shots. He died despite rescue efforts by deputies and the Maple Valley Fire Department.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg recommended the inquest after his office reviewed investigative materials from the Sheriff’s Office. Inquests are fact-finding hearings conducted before a six-member jury. Under a standing Executive Order they are routinely called to determine the circumstances of any death involving a member of any law enforcement agency within King County.

His mother, Darla Sampson, has said that Eric received a lot of tickets. At first he paid them reluctantly, but later became hostile about “stupid tickets,” such as reckless driving for doing half-doughnuts in a parking lot and smoking rubber at a stoplight. He wasn’t able to pay the fines, and they kept mounting up, along with his frustration.

“He just didn't deserve to die like that," Darla Sampson has said, adding he was shot up to 15 times."They didn't have to chase or hunt him down like that. They knew where he lived. ... There are people raping and murdering and robbing banks--he just didn't pay his traffic tickets. There was no reason to shoot him as many times as they did."