Five people are dead after a reported street stabbing in the small community of Purdy in Pierce County, Washington, followed minutes later by deputies shooting the suspected attacker. Investigators now have to trace a tight timeline that began with a no-contact order call and ended with multiple homicides.
TLDR
Authorities in Pierce County, Washington, say four adults were fatally stabbed in Purdy, and a 32-year-old male suspect was shot by deputies. An independent team is investigating the timeline, the no-contact order, and the deputies’ use of deadly force.
Fatal Morning in Purdy
According to Fox News, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said four adult victims were killed in Purdy, a waterfront community near Gig Harbor in western Washington. The 32-year-old male suspect, who has not been publicly identified, died at the scene after being shot by responding deputies.
Local station FOX 13 Seattle, cited in the Fox News report, reported that three victims died at the scene and a fourth died at a hospital. All five of the dead, including the suspect, were described as adults in those early accounts.
Timeline and No-Contact Order
In the Fox News account, officials said the episode began shortly after 8:45 a.m., when the sheriff’s office received a call about a man entering a Purdy home in violation of a no-contact order. Deputies were reportedly heading to serve that order when events outside the home escalated.
By about 9:30 a.m., multiple witnesses reported that a man was “stabbing people” in the street outside the house, according to the Fox News report, which cited FOX 13 Seattle. Authorities said deputies confronted and shot the suspect roughly three minutes after those stabbing reports, a narrow window that investigators will now be tasked with confirming against dispatch logs, body-camera footage, and witness interviews.
Use-of-Force Review and Community Questions
The Pierce County Force Investigation Team has been assigned to lead the inquiry into the stabbings and the deputies’ use of deadly force. Under Washington law, police shootings are typically reviewed by an independent investigative team, often drawing personnel from multiple agencies, to examine whether policies and state standards were followed.
Among the issues that the team is expected to examine are how deputies responded to the initial no-contact order call, what they knew about the suspect before they arrived, and whether there were any prior incidents at the address. Investigators will also need to establish how many deputies fired, how many rounds were discharged, and whether any nearby cameras or electronic records captured the moments between the first 911 call and the suspect’s death.
As of the Fox News report dated February 1st, 2026, Pierce County officials had not publicly released the names of the victims or the suspect, nor the nature of any relationship among them. Those identifications, along with autopsy findings and the force investigation team’s eventual report, are likely to shape how the community, and potentially prosecutors, assess the decisions made during a few violent minutes on a Purdy street.
