Former Medford officer charged in Washington murder

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A former Medford police officer is set to be arraigned in Washington today on charges he shot and killed his girlfriend on the Washington coast Friday.

Brian K. Brush, owner of North River Boats Inc. in Roseburg, was charged with first-degree murder after Long Beach, Wash., police allegedly saw him shoot and kill Lisa G. Bonney of Long Beach. He is being held without bail in Pacific County Jail in South Bend, Wash.

Three Long Beach police officers were patrolling the beach near the Bolstad Beach Approach when they heard a sound at about 4:40 p.m., Police Chief Flint Wright said.

The officers turned toward the noise and saw Brush, 47, standing about 150 yards away on the paved approach to the beach and firing a gun into the ground, Wright said. At the time, police did not know what Brush was shooting, he said.

When Brush saw the officers approaching him, he threw the gun into the grass, Wright said. Police apprehended him without incident.

"It wasn't until they had him apprehended that they found her," Wright said of the victim, 45-year-old Bonney.

Bonney was dead when police found her body in the grass at the end of the paved beach approach, he said.

Wright told the Longview, Wash., newspaper, The Daily News, that Brush and Bonney were arguing on the beach approach when she walked away. Brush then retrieved a shotgun from his truck, returned to the scene and shot Bonney three times, Wright told the newspaper.

Long Beach was swarmed with about 60,000 people who were attending the Rod Run, an annual car festival. The police who witnessed the shooting were patrolling the beach on foot during the event, Wright said.

Brush has a home in Long Beach and has lived in the town, with a population of about 1,500 people, for the last year, Wright said. Bonney was Brush's on-again, off-again girlfriend, but the pair was not living together, he said.

Brush, a divorcee who has a young daughter, also owns two homes in the Roseburg area.

He was a Medford police officer before moving from the area in 2000 and is a graduate of St. Mary's High School in Medford.

— The News-Review, Roseburg, and staff reports

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