The fatal shooting of a Rock Springs man during a March 12 arrest involving two Wyoming-based U.S. Marshals Service deputies was justified and did not violate federal or state laws, Uinta County’s top prosecutor has determined.
Steven Sheesley, 34, died a few minutes after he was shot.
One of the deputy marshals shot him in the chest, killing Sheesley, says a Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) report released Wednesday to Cowboy State Daily. The other one hit him in the arm.
Sheesley had made desperate and suicidal statements to his ex-wife in the preceding months. During the attempted arrest, his stance, statements, and gestures indicated that he was armed and would kill his arresting officers, according to an Aug. 27 decision letter Cowboy State Daily obtained Thursday from Uinta County Attorney Loretta Howieson Kallas.
“It is substantially irrelevant to these factors that in retrospective 20/20 hindsight we know that Sheesley was unarmed,” wrote Kallas in the letter, addressed to the incident’s lead investigator, DCI Special Agent Dan Allison.
“Objective review of (Sheesley’s) actions clearly demonstrate he intended law enforcement to believe he was armed and dangerous,” added Kallas, “and he was effective in that ruse.”
Wyoming self-defense law says that a person may take self-defensive action if the circumstances are such that a reasonable person in his position would believe a real threat is imminent – even if a real threat is not imminent.
The prosecutor’s conclusion was based on a DCI investigation into the shooting. The state law enforcement agency investigates officer-involved shootings in Wyoming, as a third-party law enforcement agency.
The Search
The Wyoming branch of the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) in October took over the search for Sheesley after the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office had searched for him for about five months, court and investigative documents say.
The Laramie County District Attorney’s Office had charged Sheesley Oct. 7, 2024, with two counts of failure to register as a sex offender. Because this was at least his second time breaking the registry law, allegedly, he faced up to five years in prison on each count, plus fines.
At age 19 in 2010, Sheesley committed third-degree sexual abuse against a 14-year-old girl, court documents say. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a term of probation. He was later sentenced to another two-to-five-year prison stint for not registering as a sex offender in 2019, court documents say.
At some point after the warrant was issued for the 2024 Laramie County failure-to-register case, federal authorities took over the search, says the DCI report.
In mid-March, USMS Deputies Nicholas Grundey and James McGhee tracked Sheesley to an Evanston trailer park.
The deputies had been granted a federal search and arrest warrant, says the document.
Also involved with the operation were U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers Doug Sipes and Brett Layman; Uinta County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Rowdy Dean, Deputy Cody Kolan, and Evanston Police Department personnel.
‘Shoot Me’
The incident unfolded after 3 p.m. March 12.
The plan was to apprehend Sheesley at the Lindley Park mobile home complex, where agents believed Sheesley was staying with a girlfriend.
The woman later told investigators she was just a friend of Sheesley’s.
The federal court located in Yellowstone National Park issued a search and arrest warrant, says the report.
Agents watched Sheesley arrive at the home in the passenger seat of the woman’s vehicle. He entered the home carrying what looked like a grocery bag – and he looked at the law enforcement personnel who were surveilling the home, the report indicates.
Deputies and officers decided to approach.
Dean watched McGhee knock at the trailer house door and announce that they planned to serve a warrant on the property, according to Dean’s interview with DCI investigators.
The woman answered the door. She was holding a baby and interacting with another small child, whom she placed in front of herself, Layman said in his interview.
Deputy marshals talked with the woman at the front door.
Multiple law enforcement personnel later told DCI they believed the woman was stalling so Sheesley could escape, the report says.
Dean noticed Sheesley fleeing from the back of the home.
The woman later indicated that he fled through a small bathroom window. She voiced surprise that he could fit through it.
Dean called out for Sheesley to stop.
The man zig-zagged as he ran, and said, “You’re going to have to f***ing shoot me,” according to the report.
Law enforcement personnel got into vehicles and chased Sheesley. The latter fled into a tan maintenance shop associated with the trailer park.
A maintenance worker left the building with his hands up. That man later told investigators that Sheesley had crashed into the shop and said, “Get a gun so I can shoot these f***ing cops.”
The federal deputies and officers entered the shop ahead of Dean.
Inside The Shop
Inside the shop, Layman went to the right side of a large tractor. He made eye contact with Sheesley, and the latter shouted, “F*** you, let’s do this! You ready?” the report relates from Layman’s interview.
McGhee and Grundey were standing directly in front of Sheesley. The deputy marshals gave commands like “hands up, hands up!” the report says.
Sheesley’s hand was inside his pants. He removed his hand from inside his pants “as fast as you can do it,” Layman said during his interview with Allison and Special Agent Eric Ford.
It looked like Sheesley had something in his hand, said Layman. Other agents echoed that description in their own interviews.
A pair of glasses were later found on scene.
Layman heard one “big boom.”
McGhee had fired a shotgun, the report later concludes. Grundey had fired a Glock pistol. They both reacted “immediately” to what they cast as Sheesley’s gestures, it says.
McGhee later told investigators he “had no doubt at that time that Sheesley was armed.”
Sheesley hit the ground, rolled to his right, then tried to get up and turned as if to do something else, Layman said.
Layman heard a pistol shot.
Sheesley slunk to the ground on his chest.
Dean left the building to call for emergency medical services, his interview says.
Thank You
Layman holstered his gun and grabbed a set of handcuffs from Sipes, who had approached Layman from behind.
Layman started handcuffing Sheesley, but the man fought and kicked. Eventually, Layman got Sheesley handcuffed.
Sheesley kept thanking the law enforcement officers, according to multiple interviews. One deputy marshal said Sheesley thanked them about 50 times.
“Layman believed Sheesley was not thanking him for his assistance, (but) was thanking the officers for shooting him,” the report says.
Emergency medical responders came to help Sheesley, who was propped against Layman’s knee.
An ambulance took Sheesley to the hospital, where he died within 45 minutes.
“That got out of hand quickly,” McGhee said to Kolan, according to the report’s summary of Kolan’s body camera video.
“He threatened me with a gun,” McGhee continued. “And made motions like…”
Factory Reset
The report says that when DCI Special Agent Russ Schmitt told Sheesley’s female friend that the man had been fatally shot, she sat on the ground and cried.
Sheesley was adamant about not going back to prison, she said, adding that the “system” broke him.
She handed over some of his belongings but said she didn’t know where his phone was.
Weeks later when she gave investigators Sheesley’s phone and tablets, they appeared to have been factory reset, the report says.
Aftermath
The shop owner and others told investigators that there were no cameras in the shop.
According to Layman, neither deputy marshal appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs ahead of the incident. Both deputy marshals said the same in their own interviews days after the incident.
When first approached the day of the shooting, the deputy marshals declined to speak with DCI investigators without an attorney present.
The night of the shooting the four federal agents went out to dinner together.
Allison called Sipes’ cellphone so he could speak with McGhee and Grundey – about voluntary blood draws.
They both denied consent for Allison to have their blood drawn, says the report.
Allison countered, saying if they’d had drinks at dinner, they could simply provide the receipt for the drinks and DCI could factor those alcohol counts out.
The deputy marshals denied consent once again. One of them later said this was upon advice of their counsel.
All-Nighter
Allison, Ford and Special Agent Jon Briggs pulled an all-nighter March 12-13.
They catalogued, analyzed and pulled evidence from the shop. They interviewed law enforcement personnel. They canvassed the neighbors and sought video evidence.
Firearm projectiles had lodged in the brass pipes within the shop, the report says.
On March 13 Allison called Sheesley’s ex-wife, mother, and other family members to tell them that Sheesley had died under circumstances now comprising a DCI case.
Sheesley had sent his ex-wife a last will and testament months prior, the report relates, with confirmation from his probation agent.
Tox Report
Uinta County Deputy Coroner John Thompson met agents at the hospital.
Ford asked for an autopsy.
Thompson said he saw no reason for an autopsy, the report says.
Still, countered Ford, autopsies are standard in such cases.
Thompson said he’d discuss that with the coroner.
Ultimately, Larimer County, Colorado, death investigators conducted an autopsy.
Uinta County Coroner Greg Crandall could not be reached for comment by publication time.
The county twice routed calls to his office to a funeral home for which he no longer works. A person answering at the funeral home said he’d pass a message along to Crandall for the outlet.
Larimer County death investigators took toxicology samples from Sheesley.
Those revealed that his blood contained amphetamines, meth and Delta-9 THC, says the report. He was suffering from “acute” intoxication, says the prosecutor’s letter.
Kallas’ letter redacts the names of the deputy marshals and ICE officers involved, except for the first letter of each surname.
The DCI report does not, and Kallas’ conclusions are discernible in her letter.
She concluded from the evidence that it was Grundey’s 9 mm shot that had struck Sheesley in the chest, fracturing several ribs and slicing his left lung.
McGhee’s shot hit Sheesley in the right forearm, causing some hemorrhage and laceration but not injuring any vital structure. That wound was clearly from the shotgun, Kallas wrote.
A Little Law
Kallas’ letter to Allison analyzes the incident under Wyoming murder and assault laws and under a federal law barring people acting “under color of any law” from willfully depriving others of rights.
If the government were to prosecute federal agents under the latter, it would have to prove that the agents acted under color of law, deprived a victim of an established right, acted willfully, and that the deprivation caused injury or death.
The established right in question is a person’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures, which includes a protection against “objectively unreasonable” force, wrote Kallas.
She invoked a 1989 court case which says the use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on scene, not with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.
“Allowance must be made for the fact that law enforcement officials are often forced to make split-second judgments in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving,” she added.
She also referred to cases addressing the definition of “willfully,” which at least one court said is apparent when there’s “intentionally wrongful conduct.”
Deadly force is justified in this context, wrote Kallas, when the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect poses serious physical harm to himself or to others.
She quoted a 1998 Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals case.
The language roughly aligns with Wyoming self-defense laws as well.
Under Kallas’ federal law analysis, the evidence didn’t show the officers acted with criminal intent, nor did they deviate from the lawful performance of their duties, she wrote.
“It appears that both (deputy marshals) had a reasonable expectation that Sheesley was armed at the time of their encounter,” wrote Kallas, “based upon his prior history, his statements as to action intended associated with his warrant, his evasion from arrest and his threats and statements to them at the time he was armed and that he would kill them.”
All law enforcement tried to deescalate the situation, but Sheesley “acted in a manner consistent with that of a person drawing and pointing a weapon at (Layman, Grundey, and McGhee),” wrote Kallas.
The deputy marshals acted with deadly force to protect themselves and Layman, she added.
“Based upon these facts, there is no violation of Wyoming law in this matter and no further action will be taken in relation to any criminal prosecution for the death of Steven Sheesley by this office,” Kallas concluded.
The Wyoming-based U.S. Marshals Service office did not return multiple voicemail requests for comment Thursday.
ICE’s Denver Enforcement and Removal Operations office declined Thursday to comment.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
