The man, who was armed with a rifle, was throwing unspecified “incendiary devices” at the Northwest Detention Center, according to a police statement. The man continued throwing lit objects at buildings and cars, the statement said.
“One car was fully engulfed in flames,” said Officer Loretta Cool, a spokeswoman for the Tacoma Police Department. “He was also trying to ignite a big propane tank but he was not successful.”
Officers arrived around 4 a.m. and called out to the man, who was wearing a satchel and had flares. Shots were fired that resulted in the man’s death, the statement said. Cool could not say whether the man had opened fire.
The man, who was not publicly identified, was declared dead at the scene. No officers were injured.
A motive for the attack was not known but it happened as the issue of immigration has reached a flash point in the United States.
The episode happened the morning after Vice President Mike Pence visited migrant detention centers in Texas, and thousands attended “Lights for Liberty” demonstrations. More than 700 were planned in hundreds of cities around the country, including at the Tacoma center. The episode happened one day before ICE was said to be planning to arrest thousands of members of families with deportation orders.
GEO Group has run the Tacoma center under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2005. It is the fourth-largest immigration detention center in the country, with a capacity to hold 1,575 people, according to the city government.
Tanya Roman, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said no ICE employees were harmed or involved. It was not immediately known how many detainees were in the center.
The four officers involved in the episode were placed on paid administrative leave in keeping with department policy, police said.
Cool said police were working with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The Seattle Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said on Twitter it was also helping in the investigation.