Police in the Pacific Northwest are urgently searching for a former police officer suspected of killing two people and abducting a young boy near the Washington-Oregon state line on Monday.
Elias Huziar, 39, may be headed to Mexico and is “armed and considered dangerous, and is likely to commit more crimes,” according to the Amber Alert issued by the Washington State Patrol for 1-year-old Roman Huziar.
He was last seen driving a silver 2009 Toyota Corolla with Washington plates CBZ4745, according to the alert. In an updated post on the West Richland Police Department's Facebook Tuesday morning, police said Huziar was spotted in Portland, Oregon overnight driving a black sedan.
AMBER Alert- West Richland, WA- UPDATE pic.twitter.com/mWUyJMqV7p
— WSP Missing Person Alerts (@WSPMissingPers1) April 23, 2024
Officials did not say what relation Huziar has to the boy he is accused of abducting.
Police identified Huziar as a person of interest after officers responded to a shooting at Wiley Elementary School just before 3:30 p.m. on Monday as students were being released for the day and found a woman dead outside.
There were no other victims from the incident at the school and the suspect had fled the scene before officers arrived.
The school canceled classes for Tuesday, according to a notice on its website.
Later that day, police said officers went to execute a search warrant at Huziar’s home and discovered another person, described as a “known associate of the suspect,” had been killed.
The victims’ identities were not made public, but the Amber Alert states Huziar is suspected of killing his ex-wife and girlfriend.
The Tri-City Herald reported that before the killings and abduction on Monday, Huziar was under investigation for allegedly raping a friend of his teenage girlfriend and was out on bond after being charged in February. Court documents stated the girlfriend is Roman Huziar’s mother, the Tri-City Herald reported.
Huziar’s ex-wife had recently filed for a protection order and change of custody for their two sons, ages 5 and 9, the Tri-City Herald reported from court documents.
When Huziar was previously arrested for the rape charge, the city of Yakima released a statement that said he was an employee there until February 2022. The statement did not say why Huziar left.
In older posts on Facebook, the Yakima Police Department said Huziar joined the department in 2014 and began serving as a school resource officer for Washington Middle School in 2018.
