Autopsy shows suspect was shot 25 to 31 times.

Byline: REBECCA NOLAN The Register-Guard

CRESWELL - A man who shot at police and said he wanted to die during an eight-hour confrontation at his Creswell trailer was shot at least 25 times when he stepped outside with a gun in his hand and refused to drop it.

Dr. Edward Wilson, assistant Lane County medical examiner, on Friday released results from the autopsy of Guy Einer McClure, 35, shot by nine Metro Area SWAT officers Jan. 18 following the overnight standoff.

Wilson said at least 25 and as many as 31 bullets hit and wounded McClure when the officers fired. The majority of the bullets struck him in the torso, where police said SWAT officers are trained to aim.

Nine bullets hit his right arm, Wilson said. McClure held a .44-caliber handgun in that hand, police said.

"I am disgusted," McClure's mother, Kathy McClure of Eugene, said Friday. "If they had just left him alone, this wouldn't have happened. He wasn't shooting at them until they put the tear gas in."

Police said the autopsy findings proved SWAT officers acted with discretion considering the danger posed to themselves and other residents of the Creswell Court trailer and mobile home park.

McClure called a neighbor Jan. 17 and said his fiancee had shot him in the face with a .44 Magnum. The 37-year-old woman escaped with a bullet wound to her hand.

The neighbor called police at 8:27 p.m. and deputies soon surrounded the trailer. The SWAT team arrived 3 1/2 hours later.

Deputies tried to drive him out with tear gas, and negotiators and dispatchers urged him to come outside unarmed. But McClure, who was drinking whiskey throughout the night, refused to come out. He told dispatchers that he was bleeding to death, that he wanted to die and that he would shoot anyone who tried to make him leave.

When he finally did exit shortly before 4 a.m., he held the .44 in his right hand with his finger on the trigger, police said. Officers repeatedly ordered him to drop the weapon.

They shot him when he walked within 10 feet of officers despite orders to stop, police said. About three seconds passed from the moment McClure stepped out of the trailer to the moment he fell to the ground, Eugene police Sgt. Scott McKee said.

Eight of the nine SWAT officers who shot at McClure were armed with fully automatic weapons designed to fire two or three bullets each time the trigger is pulled, McKee said. In three to five seconds, the weapons can unload their entire 30-round magazine, he said.

"When you put that into perspective, you understand that number of rounds is not unusual when you have that many shooters," said McKee, who served on the SWAT team for 5 1/2 years and now heads the department's violent crimes unit.

"I think it's indicative of shooter discretion, because the weapons are capable of firing so much more," he said. "An untrained officer or untrained individual may just squeeze the trigger and spray bullets until they're out of ammunition."

The Lane County district attorney has called the shooting justifiable. Eugene police and the Lane County sheriff's office are conducting internal investigations into the officers' conduct. Six of the nine shooters are Eugene officers and three are with the sheriff's office.

The sheriff also is conducting a criminal investigation into the shooting and has not revealed the total number of bullets fired by officers or by McClure. Investigators also have not revealed whose bullets pierced several neighboring trailers and a mobile home.

Kathy McClure said she believes her son was blinded by tear gas when he stepped out of the trailer that night and he wasn't wearing his glasses. "I know when he stepped out he couldn't see those officers," she said. "He didn't have his glasses on and he can't see a thing without them."

She said alcoholism, financial problems and the lasting effects of a bitter divorce had driven the man into a deep depression.

A test performed after McClure's death found he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.26 percent, more than three times the legal limit for drunken driving, said Wilson, the assistant medical examiner. Tests for other drugs came back negative.

No police bullets hit McClure in the head, although he had been shot in the face during the earlier domestic dispute, Wilson said. That wound was not life-threatening. Each of his arms and legs was hit, and bullets punctured both lungs, his heart, his liver, his aorta and his intestines.

State law allows all sworn officers to use deadly force when their lives or the lives of others are in imminent danger. In this case, nine individual officers evaluated the threat and concluded that the only way to stop McClure was to shoot, McKee said. Because of the unpredictability of barricaded suspects, no one officer or team of officers was designated the shooter, he said.

All of the Eugene officers involved have returned to work, McKee said. Some of them have struggled in the aftermath of the shooting and have sought counseling. "Just because we are police officers does not mean we are hardened to the point that the use of deadly force doesn't impact us," McKee said. "It's an emotional situation. They're all human beings."

Kathy McClure said police have never contacted her to give their condolences for her son's death. She expressed disdain for media depictions of suffering officers. "When they sign up for that job, they know what it is," she said. "They know they can kill someone."