Body-cam footage shows chaos of SWAT arrest ending in deaths of Pierce deputy, suspect

Body-camera footage obtained by The News Tribune shows how a Pierce County Sheriff’s Department SWAT operation last year instantly turned violent and chaotic, resulting in the deaths of a deputy and the suspect whom authorities had under surveillance.

Seconds after six SWAT team members rushed out of an unmarked white van, which had accelerated to a bumper-to-bumper stop in front of suspect Jeremy Dayton’s parked Cadillac DeVille, a barrage of gunfire rang out in an otherwise quiet trailer park in Spanaway.

Deputy Dom Calata, 35, was killed. So too was Dayton, 40, who was thought to be armed and had skipped the first day of an assault trial that could have resulted in a life sentence for him. Then-Sgt. Rich Scaniffe, the SWAT team leader, suffered a life-threatening gunshot wound to his femoral artery. He recovered after surgery and has since been promoted to lieutenant.

The often graphic footage from body-worn cameras of six deputies shows how the incident unfolded on March 15, 2022, and how the SWAT team members were caught off guard by Dayton’s immediate gunfire and hampered by poor visibility into the Cadillac’s dark-tinted windshield and windows. Investigative documents showed that the team had hoped to catch Dayton by surprise from the rear, but his car was backed up against a fence. Scaniffe decided to modify the plan to approach the car from the front. Within moments of the SWAT van hitting his bumper, Dayton began firing.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Thomas Quinlan in March ordered the city of Tacoma — which held the records as part of its independent investigation into the incident — to release the videos with some redactions in response to a public records request by The News Tribune. Calata’s wife and Scaniffe had objected in court to the disclosure of certain footage based on privacy concerns.

In his ruling, Quinlan weighed what footage constituted “legitimate and substantial public concern” related to Washington law and the state Constitution.

“It is never our intent with a public records request to cause harm or trauma to those involved, but to shed light on what exactly happened in this tragic event,” Stephanie Pedersen, President and Editor at The News Tribune, said in a statement. “The public has a right to see what happened that day.”

Members of Dayton’s family asked for the footage to be released with minimal redactions, including images of his body.

“I don’t think [deputies] did their job right,” Dayton’s brother Eric Kimbrough, who filed a records request for the video footage, told The News Tribune earlier this year. He questioned the urgency of Dayton’s medical care and whether the SWAT team could have avoided a gun battle using different tactics.

Sudden shift

Much of the footage reflects the harrowing details of the operation that were reported in November by The News Tribune after poring over hundreds of pages of investigative documents. The body-cam videos also provide new first-person accounts of the speed in which the operation shifted into a fight for survival.

In late December, Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney Mary Robnett, who said the footage “revealed how chaotic, yet controlled, the scene was,” laid out the significant challenges that deputies faced in the operation as she concluded their use of force was justified in response to Dayton firing four rounds from a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol. The handgun had more ammo, but Scaniffe’s return fire disabled the weapon.

Robnett noted the SWAT deputies did not don helmets and wore light gear as a part of a Mobile Arrest Team operation which prioritizes speed and surprise to arrest a suspect in a vehicle; their vision was obscured by the dark-tinted windshield and windows on Dayton’s car; and a flash-bang grenade thrown by a deputy during the gunfire malfunctioned.

A 24-minute recording from Sgt. Robert Shaw’s body-worn camera shows him exit the van after Calata briefly struggled with the rear door, and then run along the driver’s side to get a view of Dayton’s vehicle as gunfire erupted. Shaw throws a flash-bang grenade near the passenger side of the Cadillac, but it does not emit a blinding flash and disorienting “bang” as expected. He then fires several times into the car’s windshield. After the gunfire from the Cadillac stops, Shaw advances on the car and shoots into the windshield from close proximity.

In the footage, it’s difficult to make out a suspect inside the vehicle.

“He’s in between the two seats, can you see him?” Shaw can be heard asking after returning to cover by the van, to which another deputy confirms he can.

Uncertainty lingers

In a 36-minute recording captured by the body camera of detective Patrick Dos Remedios, who drove the van, Dos Remedios can be heard yelling, “Gun!” several times just seconds before the shooting begins. After gunfire has subsided, Dos Remedios is heard saying, “I can’t see nothing,” as he and others maintain cover on both sides of the van with their weapons aimed at the car’s windshield.

The gunfire lasted 35 seconds, beginning nearly immediately after the van pulled to a stop in front of the suspect’s car, according to body-cam footage. Deputies who weren’t attending to Calata and Scaniffe continued to keep their eyes and weapons trained on Dayton, who they said they could see was still breathing, and repeatedly ordered him to put his hands up.

Just before the shooting stopped, deputy Tyler Seavey is shown pulling Scaniffe behind the van from along its rear passenger side only seconds after Scaniffe falls and repeatedly yells, “I’m hit!”, according to Seavey’s 37-minute body camera recording, which redacts images and certain audio. Seavey then fires four rounds at the car before quickly turning to Calata, who is down further up on the same side of the van.

“Grab the shield, I need to grab, Dom,” Seavey is heard telling another deputy.

Slightly more than a minute after Calata goes down, Seavey follows shielded deputies to Calata and drags him backward to cover behind the van, Seavey’s body-cam footage shows. He and other deputies who’ve arrived on scene begin immediately performing emergency aid on the two injured deputies as sirens ring in the background. Within about six minutes of the shooting, Calata and Scaniffe are rushed into separate patrol SUVs to meet paramedics at a nearby staging area for transport to a hospital.

Seavey returns to confront Dayton, joining other deputies who are in cover on both sides of the van’s front side and unsure of whether Dayton will try to shoot again, according to body-cam footage.

At one point, Shaw throws four large, landscape-style rocks at the Cadillac in an effort to improve visibility. Three of the throws result in the sound of glass breaking but it’s not visible from the footage which car window they strike. Another deputy hurls a brick that also breaks glass.

Nearly seven-and-a-half minutes after the shooting began, Shaw — who had moved to new cover behind a tree with a direct view of the car’s driver-side door — fires a single shot through the driver-side window.

“Don’t move!” he’s heard yelling three times before shooting.

About 15 minutes after the opening barrage of gunfire, Shaw and other deputies — including at least one who’s among those who’ve arrived on scene as backup — pull Dayton out of the car to the ground by his right arm. The lead deputy is holding a shield. Dayton, who is unresponsive and obviously gravely injured, is then handcuffed behind his back.

“Hey, we have medical aid coming up quick?” Shaw is heard asking. “Medical aid now!”

In Seavey’s body camera recording, deputies can be seen attending to Dayton, who has been placed onto his side and has agonal breathing. A deputy holds gauze to a wound on Dayton’s head and asks if there’s a chest seal available. Seavey cuts Dayton’s jacket and other deputies provide more bandages to apply to Dayton’s body as one calls out the injuries he sees.

Paramedics arrive on scene to attend to Dayton roughly seven-and-a-half minutes after he has been pulled out of the vehicle and announce “no pulse” and that his injuries were consistent with “a cause of death.” He had seven distinct gunshot wounds, including two to the head, and died at the scene from “multiple gunshot wounds,” according to the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, citing his autopsy.

Dayton was pronounced dead at 12:29 p.m., according to the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Based on the time stamp on Seavey’s body-cam, the pronouncement came nearly 20 minutes after paramedics had found no pulse.

Four SWAT team members ultimately fired more than 60 times at Dayton’s vehicle, investigative documents showed.

Calata, an Army veteran, was shot in the head by Dayton within seconds after running out of the back of the van and around to its passenger side at the beginning of the operation. He died the following day. Scaniffe, who had been riding in the passenger seat, was struck in the pelvis, destroying his femoral artery, according to a declaration he made in court.

‘You ready?’

Calata and Scaniffe are among nine Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies involved in the SWAT operation who will be honored with the Law Enforcement Medal of Honor on May 5. The medal recognizes police officers who were killed in the line of duty or “distinguished themselves by exceptional meritorious conduct,” according to the Washington Attorney General’s Office. The ceremony will be held in Olympia.

Additionally, Calata will be recognized at the Eastern Washington Law Enforcement Memorial Wall in Spokane on Tuesday and the sheriff’s department will be traveling to Washington D.C. to honor Calata at the Law Enforcement Memorial during the weekend of May 12, the department said.

Roughly 2,000 people attended Calata’s funeral in a Tacoma church less than two weeks after the Spanaway confrontation, remembering the only deputy to ever be killed during a Pierce County SWAT operation as someone with a generous spirit who always offered a smile and kind word.

Scaniffe, who had recently been released from the hospital at the time, was greeted by a standing ovation when he walked to the podium.

“When this gun battle started, I knew I was in grave danger. Dom rushed to my side to fight shoulder to shoulder. He was determined, he was heroic and he was brave,” Scaniffe said during the funeral. “I would give anything to have Dom here today. I am heartbroken and I am sorry. I wish more than anything Dom was still here laughing.”

The body-cam footage released to The News Tribune, which by court order redacted imagery and certain audio of Scaniffe and Calata after they’d been shot, also revealed Calata’s sense of humor, even during tense moments.

In video from Shaw’s body camera before the shooting, SWAT team members are riding in the van, not far from their destination. Calata is heard joking about his clear glasses being so dark he thought he was wearing sunglasses.

Then, Shaw asks, “You ready?”

Calata’s response: “Always.”