Seattle officials are facing pointed questions over why it took nearly five hours to update the public after Sunday's shooting at the Bite of Seattle festival. The violence at Seattle Center, which began around 6 p.m., left three people dead, including a suspected shooter, and at least five others hurt. The first joint briefing by police and the mayor did not begin until close to 11 that night, and the gap has become a controversy of its own.
A source at the Seattle Police Department told FOX 13 that officers wanted to hold a briefing Sunday night and were willing to do multiple updates to get the first stream of information out hours earlier. According to that account, Mayor Katie Wilson's office asked them to wait for dignitaries to arrive. Governor Ferguson and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal both participated in the eventual news conference and offered thoughts and prayers.
Pressed on the timeline by reporter Dan Griffin, Mayor Wilson repeatedly said that account was not her understanding and denied that her office told SPD leadership it could not hold an earlier press conference. She said there is no protocol requiring the mayor's office to sign off on SPD speaking to the media, and described extensive back-and-forth between her office, the department and state and federal elected officials as they coordinated the response. At the end of the briefing she said the city would review the last few days to improve communication, calling it a work in progress.
On the investigation itself, Police Chief Sean Barnes said detectives are working through digital and physical evidence as well as firsthand accounts. Officers recovered 14 shell casings from two different caliber weapons. Investigators found three guns but believe only two were used in the attack, which Barnes identified as a polymer ghost gun and a Glock 45, with ballistic testing still to be completed.
Police say the 15-year-old suspect who was arrested had the ghost gun, which was fitted with an extended magazine with a 33-round capacity and still held 19 rounds. Investigators believe the incident was targeted, gang-related violence and are continuing to search for other possible suspects. Barnes said there have been at least 80 calls to the SPD tip line, and detectives are trying to find common descriptions of height, clothing, age and ethnicity among them.
The teenager is being held in juvenile detention after a judge found probable cause to hold him on suspicion of three counts of first-degree assault and one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. Because he is 15, the automatic transfer to adult court that applies to 16- and 17-year-olds under Washington law does not apply here. Prosecutors could still ask a judge to move the case to adult court, an extensive process that can take months or years and weighs the nature of the offense, criminal history, maturity and available rehabilitation programs.
A decision on the teenager's charges was expected ahead of his next court appearance, and Seattle police have until Wednesday afternoon to submit a case for a rush filing. Complicating the wider inquiry, there are no city cameras near Seattle Center, so forensic detectives are examining what private cameras may have captured, including footage from a food vendor that was livestreaming during the festival and recorded people running as the shots rang out.