FIRST REPORT, 11:56 PM: Two calls initially dispatched as “assault with weapons” – we’re en route to both.
12:08 AM UPDATE, 7500 BLOCK 24TH: This is barely a block from the precinct, where, police tell us, they heard a shot and headed this way to investigate. Someone shot himself in the foot and is described by police as “not cooperative.”
We’re off to Cottage Grove Commons next.
12:37 AM UPDATE, 5444 DELRIDGE WAY SW: Police are inside the building investigating; all we have right now is word that someone was stabbed, and at least one person is in custody. We might not be able to find out more until later this morning.
10:40 AM UPDATE: We have just obtained the police report for the Cottage Grove Commons incident, as noted in comments, and will add a summary here shortly. The 24th SW shooting is one of two incidents (the other wasn’t in West Seattle) in this SPD Blotter post just published. It doesn’t mention what we were told at the scene – that it was believed to be self-inflicted – but does say the victim is 37 and that the injury was actually to the ankle.
11:24 AM UPDATE: Adding the summary of the aforementioned police report on the 5444 Delridge Way stabbing – click ahead if you’re reading from the main page:
The 911 call came from someone who said she was a neighbor of the victim and identified “two male suspects.” The victim was in the lobby, in a wheelchair, “with an extensive amount of blood soaked into his shirt and what appeared to be a stab wound in his chest or under his left arm.” The caller told police she had seen the two suspects leave one apartment and go into another; a few minutes later, she saw the victim come out, in his wheelchair, bleeding from his chest. The victim said it happened in his apartment – one of the two suspects gave the other one a knife and stabbed him. He then was taken to the hospital; “his wounds were not life-threatening,” according to the report.
Security video, the police report continues, showed the two suspects leaving one apartment and going down the hall to another one, that of a “third party.” They found the two there, apparently playing cards; one man obeyed orders to raise his hands, the other one did not and kept holding onto his cards.
The “third party” who lives in that apartment said he didn’t know anything about a stabbing, but said he saw one of the man arguing with someone in a wheelchair in the lobby earlier in the evening when they were all playing Trivial Pursuit. Then the “third party” changed his story and said that the other two men had come over to play cards and were “talking about someone getting stabbed.” In another reported change of story, he then said one of the men came over and gave him a knife, asking him to clean it, and that it was still in his apartment. Police found “a folding knife with what appeared to be a 3″ blade, extended, on an upper shelf, partially concealed by clothing.”
Police took all three men to the precinct. The aforementioned “third party” was arrested for alleged obstruction because, the officer writes, “I believed that he had knowledge that a stabbing had occurred and he attempted to destroy and conceal evidence.” Neither of the two other men admitted stabbing the victim, but both admitted being in the room with him and drinking beer, and both were arrested for investigation of assault. According to the King County Jail Register, one of them had two warrants out for his arrest, both “failure to appear” warrants from Snohomish County, one for a larceny case, one for a DUI case. All three are still in jail as of our register check just before adding this update.
MONDAY NIGHT UPDATE: Jail records show that one of the two men arrested for investigation of assault, James Batchelor, has been charged with second-degree assault; the police report shows him with a downtown address, not a Cottage Grove Commons resident. The other man arrested for investigation of assault has not been charged and has been released from jail after four days; he is a resident, as is the victim, whose condition we don’t know. Batchelor’s charging documents are not available in the court system so we won’t be able to write a full followup until we get them, likely tomorrow. The third man arrested, on suspicion of obstructing a police officer, was released from jail on Friday, and the Seattle Municipal Court docket said no charge had been filed.
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