Portland, Oregon — This is an interesting story between a woman and her future 62 year old ex husband that ended in a fatal shooting this past Monday.
Authorities believe the man had headed over to the house to pick up his belongings because of the divorce. At some point while he was there, they began to argue. The man reportedly pulled out his gun and threatened her with it.
According to reports, that’s when the estranged wife drew her own gun, firing at the man twice.
Police officers arrived on scene to the 16800 block of Northwest Germantown Road after the wife called police informing them that she shot her husband. It took them less than 5 minutes to arrive on scene, but the man was beyond saving and was pronounced dead.
This is currently being treated as a self-defense case, but last we heard, police are still investigating.
Washington County Deputy Brian Van Kleef described what he’d been told by the dispatcher:
The man pulled a gun on the woman. She pulled her own gun and fired two shots at him and that’s where he died.
You can watch the video, here:

At this time it’s being reported that nobody else was home, except for a couple dogs.
That’s the news, now here’s the breakdown:
So, this is an odd story to be sure. There definitely seem to be some holes here, and as always it’s very hard to know anything with absolute certainty where things went wrong, what happened, etc. Because we weren’t there all we can ever do is make our best guesses and try to understand for ourselves, so we can do better.
The part that’s odd to me, is that she was able to get her gun out and shoot the man while he reportedly had his own gun in his hand. It’s rarely a good idea to draw when drawn upon. And, that could be the reason why police are still investigating.
I read a couple more reports that said the police were “probing” to see if this was self-defense or a murder that actually took place.
One thing is absolutely certain: If she was able to pull her gun out and shoot the man twice before he got off any shots, she must be quick on the draw, or he was distracted. There are other things that could have also happened here, but far be it from me to make any assumptions.
I’m not ready to call this one a defensive gun use yet, but it could be.
Leave your thoughts on this in the comments below.