As noted this afternoon in updates on our original report, there have been two developments today relating to Wednesday’s incident in which police shot and killed a man outside the Southwest Precinct. First, in line with department policy, as reiterated by Police Chief Shon Barnes in his briefing at the scene, SPD has released some of the video from the incident (warning, graphic):
After an onscreen-text introduction, video from outside the precinct lot shows the man driving this vehicle up to a Home Depot parking space outside the precinct’s north/west lot.
(WSB photo, Wednesday)
He is seen getting out and climbing the fence to get into the lot, where department vehicles are kept. From there, the SPD edited video switches to officers’ body-worn cameras, as they encounter the man, tell him to leave the lot; he walks away from them for a while, even up to a gate, then turns to face their way. They repeatedly tell him to drop the knife; then he starts moving toward them, picking up speed at one point, and that’s when one officer apparently fires a “less than lethal” weapon shortly before another fires his gun. The video also shows what police say is the knife the man had.
Meantime, as noted earlier in an update to our original report, the man was identified this afternoon by the King County Medical Examiner as 36-year-old Urban A. Seay. His cause of death is listed as “multiple gunshot wounds” and ruled “homicide” (which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s been decreed a crime, pending further investigation, but it means a person has been killed by someone else). And in the post accompanying the video, SPD has identified the officer who killed him, saying that “Kyle Hay, 11 years of service, has been placed on paid administrative leave following this incident, which is standard procedure.” SPD says its investigation continues, and also included a reminder of resources for those with thoughts of self-harm, including the 988 hotline.
ADDED: For those interested in data, we found SPD’s dashboard here for data about past incidents in which officers shot people.
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