15-year-old arrested at Seattle food festival shooting was armed with a ghost gun, police say
SEATTLE (AP) — The 15-year-old arrested after a shootout at a food festival near Seattle’s Space Needle over the weekend was armed with a ghost gun with an extended magazine, police said Tuesday.
Police Chief Shon Barnes told a news conference that the weapon was a 9 mm gun from Polymer80 — a now-defunct company that was once a leading manufacturer of ghost gun parts.
Investigators also recovered two other weapons and 14 shell casings that had been fired by weapons of two different calibers, he said.
The shooting in the waning hours of the three-day Bite of Seattle festival left three people dead, including a 19-year-old gunman, and at least four people injured, including a toddler. Authorities say they believe the violence was gang-related, and they are reviewing any available surveillance video and interviewing victims and witnesses in an effort to identify others who may have been involved.
An eighth person with a possible gunshot wound checked themself into a Seattle hospital after the shooting but checked out before investigators could conduct an interview, Barnes said. Legal obstacles have prevented detectives from obtaining the patient’s identity, he added. It’s unclear if the injury was related to the festival shooting or whether the person might have been involved in it, but Barnes asked for the person to come forward and speak with investigators.
In a document filed in juvenile court in Seattle on Monday, police said they believed there were at least three shooters: the 15-year-old, an acquaintance who died at the scene and “at least one other unknown suspect.” Authorities had earlier said they believed there were two.
A judge on Monday ordered the 15-year-old to be held in juvenile detention for investigation of assault and firearms charges pending further hearings. The King County prosecutor’s office said it expected to receive the case from police on Wednesday for a charging decision. Hong Tran, a public defender assigned to the teen’s case, declined to comment in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday identified the dead as Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba, 44; Ashley Whitehead, 56; and Junior Cee Niko Semo, 19.
