Documents: Deputy fired through front door window in fatal shooting

In a fatal shooting last week, a Pima County sheriff’s deputy fired more than 10 rifle rounds at a suspect through the front door of the house where the man was holding his sister at gunpoint, according to court documents and officials.

Shortly before midnight July 13, Brenda Doucette called 911 to say a man with a gun was trying to enter her home near Three Points, southwest of Tucson, according to a search warrant document filed by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

Doucette told the 911 operator the man, whom she identified as her brother, Chancy Chamblee, made it into the house and hit her on the head with the gun, causing her to bleed, the document said.

The operator could hear Chamblee, 55, yelling in the background that he was going to kill Doucette and making statements about “suicide by cop,” according to the filing.

The first deputy who arrived made contact with Doucette’s husband, who said Chamblee shot his wife.

Two deputies approached the front door of the house and Deputy Nathan Meeboer, a 2½-year veteran of the department, saw through the door’s broken window Chamblee and Doucette “sitting ‘Indian style’ facing each other and (Chamblee) had the rifle pointed” at Doucette, sheriff’s Lt. Gilbert Dominguez told the Star on Thursday.

Meeboer fired his rifle through the door’s broken window.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Three other deputies were at the scene at the time of the shooting, but Meeboer was the only one who fired his gun, Dominguez said.

Deputies entered the home and found Doucette, 56, and Chamblee unresponsive on the floor.

They attempted CPR, but Chamblee was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m. Doucette was pronounced dead 10 minutes later.

Evidence technicians recovered 12 .223-caliber bullet casings from a rifle on and under the front porch and two bullet casings from a .22-caliber rifle inside the home.

They also found a machete and a .22-caliber bullet on the porch and two .22-caliber rifles inside the house, along with a glass vial with a white crystal substance, a bag of marijuana and two pipes.

A search of Chamblee’s home revealed shotguns, rifles and ammunition, according to the sheriff’s document. One detective noted that deputies had been to Doucette’s house twice before for domestic-violence incidents involving the same people.