Local law enforcement officers deputized as U.S. Marshals have given conflicting accounts of the shooting. Witnesses say they heard no warning before the agents shot Michael Reinoehl dead, an outcome President Trump termed “retribution.’’

By Bryan Denson for ProPublica and Conrad Wilson, Oregon Public Broadcasting

LACEY, WA — Late summer sunshine bathed a working-class neighborhood in suburban Olympia, Washington, on the first Thursday afternoon in September as Michael Forest Reinoehl left the Tanglewilde Terrace Townhomes, climbed behind the wheel of his silver Volkswagen station wagon and tossed a couple of travel bags onto the passenger seat.

It was Reinoehl’s fifth day on the run. Hours earlier, prosecutors in Portland, Oregon, had charged the self-described antifascism activist with second-degree murder in the Aug. 29 shooting death of Patriot Prayer supporter Aaron “Jay” Danielson, and a team of federal fugitive hunters armed with an arrest warrant gathered to plan a takedown at the nearby Lacey Police Department.

At about 6:40 p.m., two silver SUVs gunned toward Reinoehl, tires squealing as they skidded to a stop in front of his VW, pinning his car in. Deputized U.S. marshals burst from the vehicles aiming military rifles at him. The official line is that Reinoehl jumped out of his car, his hand on the .380-caliber pistol in his pocket, defying a shouted command: “Stop! Police!”

What happened next remains unclear, even among law enforcement officials who participated.

One deputy U.S. marshal told investigators with the Thurston County sheriff’s office that Reinoehl pointed a gun at him. Another deputy marshal told detectives that Reinoehl had his hand on his pistol and was in the process of pulling the gun out of his pocket when officers fired. The gun was in Reinoehl’s right front pants pocket when detectives recovered it.

Civilian eyewitnesses interviewed by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica and other public statements offer similarly inconsistent and sometimes conflicting recollections. They agree that they heard no warning from federal agents, and saw no flashing lights that indicated the arrival of law enforcement, just a fusillade that one neighbor likened to a scene out of the video game Call of Duty.