On the night of October 31, 2009, at approximately 10:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time (
UTC-7), Brenton and his partner, trainee officer Britt Sweeney, were sitting in their
patrol car following a traffic stop at 29th Avenue South and East Yesler Way in the
Central District. Sweeney was sitting in the driver's seat with Brenton in the passenger seat. As they were discussing the traffic stop they had just performed, a vehicle pulled up alongside their police car and someone inside opened fire with a rifle. Sweeney ducked, and a bullet grazed the top of her head and her back. Brenton, meanwhile, was mortally wounded in the attack. The suspect's vehicle reversed, turned around, and fled the scene in the direction from which it had come. As the vehicle was fleeing the scene, Sweeney managed to call for help, exit the patrol car, and return fire. Seattle's police chief called the attack an
assassination, Several days after the shooting, a suspicious vehicle was identified as having been seen on dashboard cameras of other police vehicles in the area of the shooting. A public memorial service was held for Brenton on November 6. The memorial began with a procession of police and fire vehicles from the
University of Washington campus to
KeyArena, where a public ceremony was held. As the ceremony was concluding, officers with the Seattle and
Tukwila police departments and
King County Sheriff's Office confronted Christopher Monfort, age 41, the owner of a vehicle matching the description of the suspicious vehicle in the parking lot of a Tukwila apartment complex. Monfort brandished a
9mm Glock handgun and attempted to flee into his apartment. When he brandished the weapon again, the pursuing officers opened fire, seriously wounding him. Monfort was taken to
Harborview Medical Center and his family has stated that he was
paralyzed from the waist down. == Perpetrator ==