Tacoma police have opened a homicide investigation after a man was shot and killed early Wednesday morning in the city's South End neighborhood. The killing unfolded in a quiet residential area, and by daybreak investigators had cordoned off part of the neighborhood as they worked to piece together what happened.
The shooting happened in the area of East D Street, east of Pacific. According to police, neighbors began calling 911 around 3 o'clock in the morning to report the sound of gunshots ringing out in the darkness.
Tacoma officers responded to the calls and found the man at the scene. They tried to save his life, but he could not be saved, and the case quickly became a homicide investigation that is expected to take investigators several hours to process.
One neighbor told reporters they did not think much of the loud sounds they heard overnight, given how many fireworks had been going off in the area since the Fourth of July. That confusion between fireworks and gunfire meant the gravity of what happened did not become clear until police arrived.
The investigation has taken up roughly two blocks of the residential neighborhood. Investigators and crime scene technicians were seen going in and out of a blue house, where bullet holes were visible in the window, the siding and the rain gutter. The victim was found not far from the front porch.
Detectives and forensic specialists spent the morning going door to door, looking for doorbell camera footage and speaking with neighbors who may have been getting up for work and could have seen or heard something useful to the case.
As of the latest update, no one was in custody. Tacoma police are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call 911, as the community grapples with a violent death in the middle of an otherwise ordinary residential street.