Hoquiam Police find deceased male after 911 call from a man who said he’d been shot

Hoquiam Police are investigating theå death of a man found Monday afternoon on a hillside near the 500 block of Broadway Avenue after a 911 caller reported he had been shot and the phone was traced to the area.

Hoquiam Police Chief Jeff Myers said a man called 911 at 12:18 p.m. saying he had been shot, but he was unable to provide any additional information other than he was inside a house.

“There were no immediate residences in the area, but the GPS data seemed to indicate his phone was close to this location,” said Myers. “The phone was a non-initialized service, thus there was no available subscriber name or information.”

Multiple agencies assisted Hoquiam officers, including the Aberdeen and Cosmopolis police departments, the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington State Patrol, as they flooded the area with patrol cars and officers in an attempt to find the caller.

“Units traveled up and down the road with sirens blaring in an attempt to see if the dispatcher could hear the sirens over the open 911 call and thus pin down his location,” said Myers. “Other officers went door to door at houses in the nearby neighborhoods in an attempt to locate the caller.”

Two officers were eventually directed to a nearby trail, where they located the body of a white male deceased on the hillside “a considerable distance from the roadway,” said Myers. “Hoquiam paramedics were unable to render aid.”

Hoquiam investigators were still on the scene as of 2:30 p.m. with the assistance of detectives from Aberdeen and the Sheriff’s Office. A command post was established in the 500 block of Broadway Ave.

“At this time, the department is not releasing any possible information regarding the identity of the victim as the investigation has just started,” said Myers. At the time of his statement, “no positive identification has been made and the Coroner’s Office is responding to the scene.”