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Seattle: Suspects sought in West Seattle shootings of mother and son

August 27th, 2008, incident report by jbtaylor

  • May 13 2008
  • 0
  • 2
  • 5600 block of Delridge Way SW
  • Seattle
  • Washington
  • 98106

HECTOR CASTRO AND SCOTT GUTIERREZ P-I reporters. Seattle Post - Intelligencer. Seattle, Wash.: May 15, 2008. pg. B.3

Copyright Hearst Communications Inc., Hearst Newspapers Division May 15, 2008

Seattle police were hunting for suspects Wednesday after a 28-year-old woman and her 10- year-old son were shot the night before in a West Seattle apartment.

The victims remained in Harborview Medical Center, where a spokeswoman said Wednesday that their injuries were not life-threatening.

The woman was cooking in her kitchen about 10:30 p.m. when someone fired several blasts through her window, striking her in the chest.

After the first round of shots, a gunman ran to the other side of the building and fired several more rounds, hitting her son in the shoulder, police reported. Two other people were at the apartment but were not injured, according to a police report.

"We don't know if they were actually the intended targets or whether there was somebody else," Assistant Police Chief Nick Metz said.

The woman lives in the basement of a house converted into apartments in the 5600 block of Delridge Way Southwest, with the window about 2 feet off the ground. The shattered glass and bullet holes were marked with police evidence tags.

One round pierced the wall of a next-door apartment building and struck the resident's washing machine.

"I'm lucky I wasn't in my laundry room doing my laundry," neighbor Aaron Gibbons said.

Witnesses told police they saw a man, possibly in his late teens, running from the area. Witnesses also said they followed a burgundy sport utility vehicle that police believe one or two suspects used to leave the scene. Officers said the witnesses gave up the chase after additional shots were fired.

Police found shell casings on the side of the building. A search of the area after the shooting did not result in any arrests, and no arrest had been made as of Wednesday.

Homicide and gang unit detectives were investigating.

Neighbors said police had been called to the house before and that neighborhood - a mix of houses, low-income apartments and newer town homes - has seen its share of crime.

Nichole Harty, who was visiting her mother across the street, said there had been a recent shooting at an apartment next door to her mother's place. Harty, visiting from Portland, said she heard two quick rounds of gunfire late Tuesday and several dogs barking immediately afterward. She said it made her worry about her mother.

"I think next time she's coming to visit us," she said.

In January, a gunman aiming for his former girlfriend targeted an apartment about three blocks away, starting a rampage that ended when he stormed into a Central Area cheese-steak restaurant and fatally shot the owner.

The person charged in that shooting, Rey Alberto Davis-Bell, 23, pleaded not guilty in February to first-degree murder in the death of Degene Berecha Dashasa, the Ethiopian immigrant who owned the restaurant.

Davis-Bell pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder, one stemming from the West Seattle drive-by shooting.