(These updates run through late Thursday night – we will start a new followup story by midmorning Friday)
ORIGINAL 1:46 PM REPORT: We are on our way to the assault-with-weapons call at 14th and Roxbury – more when we know it. The scanner is talking about an “armed suspect” – stay clear of the area. It’s a reported shooting and police are not sure where the suspect is. Scanner indicates possible multiple victims but we don’t have any information yet on their condition(s) or the circumstances.
1:56 PM UPDATE: Two medic units were originally dispatched and a third is now being sent. Scanner confirms at least one patient with a gunshot wound. SWAT units are on the scene as well. The scanner also indicates at least two guns were found inside the house – described as a “9 millimeter and 25 automatic.” The actual address is in the 9400 block of 14th SW (map) which is closer to Cambridge than Roxbury.
2:04 PM UPDATE: One victim is described on scanner as appearing to have three gunshot wounds; this is a 42-year-old female. The medic says on the scanner that SPD has advised fire of possibly “two or three more patients with gunshot wounds.” According to our partners at the Seattle Times, the suspect has been initially described as a 61-year-old Asian woman in white shirt and gray sweatpants.”
2:18 PM UPDATE: Scanner says four DOAs in the house. Again, this is per the scanner, we are still waiting to hear from public info officer at the scene. One survivor, as mentioned earlier, was taken to the hospital. This is the second murder case in West Seattle in two days – after none for more than a year and a half.
2:29 PM UPDATE: Police have briefed media at the scene. We will upload video of the briefing shortly. They are not confirming the conditions of the people at the house but they say the suspect is believed to be one of the four people they say are inside the house. They say the original call came around 1 pm, “shots fired” – and when they arrived, they heard more shots fired. Roxbury is closed westbound near the scene – so traffic effects are stretching beyond the immediate scene.
2:42 PM UPDATE: Christopher Boffoli, part of the WSB team at the scene, says police confirm the four deaths and one survivor and believe that the suspect is among the dead. Assistant chief Jim Pugel’s briefing per Christopher: “Confirmed four dead, including the shooter who is a Southeast Asian woman in her late 50s or early 60’s. It is believed that all involved are the same family. The woman who was transported to Harborview is believed to be the daughter who told police ‘my mother has gone crazy.’ Two handguns were recovered. The husband was outside the house. He broke through the police cordon and went inside. He made it back out alive and is not among the victims. There is a language barrier the officers are working through.”
3:08 PM UPDATE: More from Christopher at the scene – regarding the language barrier, the family is reported to speak Cambodian, according to neighbors. (We did hear a scanner call earlier for a Cambodian translator.) Southwest Precinct commander Captain Joe Kessler is there – this comes just a week before a scheduled command change at the precinct. CSI vans also just arrived on scene about 10 minutes ago. Adding a few additional photos. (All photos we are using were taken by either Christopher Boffoli or Patrick Sand.)
3:15 PM UPDATE: Police are starting to release more information about the people who were found dead: Two women in their late teens and a man in his 30s, in addition to the suspected shooter, now described as a woman in her fifties. Meantime, Christopher reports Roxbury has reopened to traffic – but is slow going with rubberneckers passing what is a clearly visible, sizable police presence.
3:33 PM UPDATE: Seattle Police have posted a summary in multiple tweets – we will transcribe here since they have not posted to their SPD Blotter site yet:
Around 1:31 p.m. officers responded to reports of shots fired in the 9400 block of 14th Avenue SW. Upon arrival, they made contact with an adult female in her 30s who had been shot in the 1400 block of SW Roxbury. Shots were still being fired. While police were still arriving a man in his 50s ran into the house in question. Two more shots were fired and he ran back out. Officers contacted him. He told officers that his wife had shot herself. Officers entered the house and located four people deceased, two women in their late teens, a man in his thirties and a woman in her 50s. Medics were not able to revive any of them. The woman who was discovered outside of the house was transported to HMC for treatment of gunshot injuries. It is believed that the deceased woman in her 50s was the shooter. Two handguns have been recovered. We don’t believe that there are any other victims. Homicide, SWAT, CSI and KCSO are on scene. No motive is known. This is an active investigation and this information is preliminary. Check here for further updates.
4:25 PM UPDATE: Here’s video of Sgt. Sean Whitcomb from the SPD media unit in what’s likely to be the last briefing of the day – he called the crime scene “pretty vicious”:
4:55 PM UPDATE: Our partners at the Seattle Times report that some kind of dispute had reportedly erupted at the home last night – here’s their story, which also is continuing to develop.
7:28 PM UPDATE: Checking back at the scene: Police say the medical examiner has just arrived – which would indicate the victims’ bodies have not yet been removed. In the past two hours, we also have added a few more images from this afternoon, photographed as events unfolded. (The photo atop the story is still a cameraphone picture sent from the scene shortly after we arrived.) At the scene tonight, people are still being kept at a distance, media included. In case you are wondering whether anyone has set up any kind of a memorial – no one has been allowed close enough for anything like that to be arranged, or visible.
8:12 PM NOTE: The White Center Community Safety Coalition, whose coverage area includes the neighborhood where today’s shooting happened, had its regularly scheduled meeting tonight, barely a block away from the scene. We attended (we usually cover it anyway for partner site White Center Now) but – not surprisingly – law enforcers weren’t there this time, so there was no new information about the case. The basic summary on SPD Blotter remains the most recent official word.
10:50 PM: Two images from the scene tonight, from Christopher Boffoli. In the first, you see authorities inside the residence, as they prepared to bring out the four bodies:
Official identification is not expected before tomorrow. The Times has spoken to family members and has published the names they were given (here’s their updated story) – reporting that the two teenage girls who were killed were the alleged killer’s granddaughters, 17 and 14 years old.
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