On May 20, an Auburn Police officer shot and killed a knife-wielding man who’d fought two officers after a domestic dispute at the Belara Apartment complex in Lakeland Hills.

On May 31, a different Auburn Police officer shot and killed Jesse Sarey, 26, whom the department claimed had resisted arrest and fought the officer outside the Sunshine Grocery at 1402 Auburn Way N.

Investigations into both shootings continue.

Last week, Auburn Police Cmdr. Steve Stocker said that the officer who’d fired the fatal shots in the May 20 incident had been placed on paid administrative leave but now is back at work. The victim, Enosa Strickland Jr., 26, died at the scene, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner.

“The investigation is almost complete,” Stocker said, “and that one is running through Pierce County.”

In the meantime, the Valley Investigative Team is at work on the Sarey shooting, but that case is much further behind than the first one, Stocker said.

“That officer is back to work on administrative duty, until we get more of the investigation done by the Valley Investigative Team,” Stocker said.

In the Sarey shooting, police said they responded to the report of a disorderly man in a tirade, throwing items at vehicles, hitting and kicking walls and other things. Police contacted Sarey just before 6 p.m. in front of the grocery. The officer attempted to arrest Sarey for a crime and he resisted, leading to a physical altercation and the shooting.

A reporter’s error in the Aug. 16 edition of the Auburn Reporter and in the previous online version of this story misidentified the man killed on May 20 as Malik Nettles, 20, of Federal Way. Malik’s death on June 28 was not the result of a police shooting, but of a gunfight involving multiple participants that broke out and ended before Auburn Police arrived on scene.