Police investigation into custody of teen shooters at Seattle festival | Today’s news
(Bloomberg) — Seattle police said two teenagers who opened fire on each other during a crowded food festival Sunday were likely part of rival gangs, as law enforcement continued to search for a third person who may have been involved.
A mass shooting near the city’s iconic Space Needle has killed two people, in addition to one of the 19-year-old suspected shooters. At least three others, including a toddler, were taken to a local hospital and treated for gunshot wounds.
A 15-year-old suspect was arrested at the scene and is facing charges of firearms violations and three counts of first-degree assault.
Public communication about the shooting since Sunday evening has been incomplete and inaccurate at times.
The mayor’s original statement Sunday night incorrectly said two suspects were in custody and was later corrected without explanation. While the police chief was out of town on the night of the incident, another senior officer waited several hours to provide preliminary information to reporters at the scene.
At a press conference Monday morning, police provided information that did not match what the department said in court documents about the suspect’s first appearance that day. Mayor Katie Wilson said in a separate briefing later in the day that her office was unaware of the details in the court documents until around the time they were first reported by local media.
“Things move very quickly and we get reports that in some cases later turn out to be false,” Wilson said. “So we are trying our best to provide definitive information.
The shooting disrupted a sunny summer evening in Seattle, where thousands of people sampled food from local vendors at the annual event held at the Seattle Center, a sprawling green campus that includes the city’s most famous cultural institutions, landmarks and sporting events.
The county medical examiner’s office on Monday identified the victims as Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba, 44, and Ashley Whitehead, 56. The 19-year-old suspected gunman who died was Junior Cee Niko Semo.
An online fundraiser for Whitehead’s family said she was standing in line for cotton candy with her daughter and future son-in-law when the shooting began, and she later died during surgery.
Police said they believe the teenagers knew each other and the shooting was targeted, although bystanders were among the victims. Police said later Monday they were still looking for a “third possible suspect” and asked witnesses to come forward with any information or videos from the crime scene.
Police Chief Shon Barnes said Monday that staffing at the event was “adequate” and vowed to bring “anyone who may have been involved to justice.”
“The problem of gun violence is exacerbated by small groups — we have small groups that seem to be at odds with each other,” Barnes said. Assistant Chief Nicole Powell later said police “believe it may be gang related.”
The incident renewed questions about security cameras near the Space Needle. CCTV surveillance has been a contentious political issue for Wilson, who has faced pressure from progressives to turn off security cameras across the city but opted to keep them on temporarily in the stadium district during recent World Cup matches.
“The safety of the people of Seattle is my highest responsibility and I take that very seriously in the course of what we have seen on CCTV,” Wilson said Monday morning. “That means balancing different kinds of security — security for different communities.”
Wilson said Monday that it had been an “extremely difficult week” for Seattle, citing several other shootings in other parts of the city.
“Everybody deserves to feel safe in our city, to be safe in our city, in all of our neighborhoods, in all of our public spaces,” Wilson said. “And we’re going to work as hard as we can to make that a reality because we know that the future of our city, its vitality, our quality of life depends on people feeling safe wherever they are in our city.”
(Update with identified victims, starting in the ninth paragraph.)
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