43rd Tacoma Homicide of 2022: Dillion Pugsley
On the last night of Dillion Pugsley’s life at around 8pm he was thrown out of a bar in the 1200 block of South 56th Street. The behavior that led to him being ejected is not known, but witnesses say that when he left he pulled out a handgun and fired it towards the bar hitting no one.
Police arrived and located Dillion in his vehicle, but when he fled, they declined to give chase. Almost two hours later he returned to the bar and police were called a second time. Again, they chose not to chase Dillion when he fled.
It was shortly after 3:00am the next morning, December 30, 2022, when police found Dillion and a woman asleep in his car. Police deployed stop sticks in front of his car and woke up Dillion who promptly started the car and drove away, crashing a few blocks later at East 43rd and F Street. The woman got out of the vehicle, but Dillion attempted to escape in the damaged vehicle, getting it onto McKinley where the vehicle stopped near East 57th.
What exactly happened next is still under investigation, but bullets from three Tacoma Police Officers were found in Dillion’s body and a gun was found with Dillion though it is unclear if he fired any shots or if he was holding it.
After the shooting paramedics were called, but Dillion died on the scene becoming Tacoma’s 43rd and last Tacoma homicide of 2022.
Dillion left a small digital footprint. I wasn’t able to find out much about his life. Perhaps part of that is because he was only thirty and had so much more life to live. It’s all too easy for some to simply see the world as full of good guys and bad guys, but the truth is that we’re all just people who make choices and each one of us has family, friends, or chosen family who will mourn when we are gone.
I can’t tell you what kind of person Dillion was or what his laugh sounded like. For that you need those close to him who I welcome to share their thoughts and memories in the comment section below.
Correction: An earlier edition of this article included a photo that was erroneously believed to be Dillion Pugsley. That photo has been removed. If you have a photo of Dillion you’d like to share, please email me.
A Small Note
I have seen multiple reports claiming that Tacoma had a record 45 homicides in 2022, but going by the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s public information page, I counted only 43. If anyone knows of a Tacoma homicide from 2022 (or before) that I missed, please let me know.
I still have over 50 Tacoma homicides that have occurred since 2022 that I have yet to cover.
No matter how you count them, 2022 was a record high year for Tacoma homicides. 2023 had less homicides. And by this time last year we had 14 homicides. This year we have 12 with almost eight more months to go.
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The photo is not the person the article is about.