Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested a man Thursday after he reportedly fired a rifle at the sheriff’s office in Bend, then engaged deputies in a high-speed chase.
In a press release Saturday morning, the sheriff’s office said Nicholas Ryan Preston-Cooper, 25, of Sunriver, fired a single round from a high-powered rifle at the entrance to the county jail, then waited for deputies to confront him in a nearby parking lot.
Sheriff’s deputies said they received a report that someone fired a gun at the sheriff’s office. The jail and the office were put on lockdown, but investigators couldn’t find a shooter or evidence that a round was fired.
The person who placed the initial report later told deputies that the shooter relocated to the Sunriver Business Park, according to the release. The sheriff’s office didn’t say who the reporting party was or how they obtained information about the shooter.
The release said plainclothes deputies located and surveilled Preston-Cooper in the business park, where he was seen loading things into his Jeep Cherokee, until additional law enforcement units arrived to assist with what they considered a high-risk traffic stop. The sheriff’s office said it later determined that the items Preston-Cooper was loading included three firearms, a plate-less ballistic vest and “a tremendous amount of ammunition.”
“It is the belief of investigators Preston-Cooper had intentions of forcing a confrontation with law enforcement,” the release said.
Once Preston-Cooper realized law enforcement officers were attempting to stop him, he fled down U.S. 97 going the wrong direction in the southbound lanes, according to deputies. They said he crossed the highway’s median to travel north in the northbound lanes.
Deputies said they twice used spikes to flatten Preston-Cooper’s tires, but he continued the pursuit near the highway’s Cottonwood Road exit. Parts of the highway near the High Desert Museum were closed during this time.
A sheriff’s deputy eventually immobilized Preston-Cooper using the “Pursuit Immobilization Technique” — a driving maneuver in which a pursuing car forces a fleeing car to abruptly turn sideways — near the Cottonwood Road exit.
Investigators later found damage evidently created by a single round fired at the administrative entrance to the county’s jail. It penetrated the exterior wall of the building and came to a rest in an interior cinder block wall in a foyer. No employees were present where the round was lodged.
