FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — Mayor Jim Ferrell of Federal Way says enough is enough: “It’s the wild west out there.”
He’s building a coalition of South King County Cities to speak as a unified voice to combat a recent string of violence.
“It’s critically important that we speak as a cohesive group in South King County that has been hard hit by this violence,” he said.
Just last a week, a shooting in Kent killed a 39-year-old man from Federal Way.
“Somebody is going to pay,” his mother Gloria Wells said. “Somebody is going to pay for this. Really they is.”
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His family says his two sons were shot in that same spot two days prior. They are both expected to survive.
Shootings at two malls last week also sent shoppers running for the lives.
A man and a woman were shot in the parking lot of the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila.
At the Tacoma Mall, gunfire rang out in the food court after a feud broke out between two groups of people.
Ferrell says much of the violence is drug related and that current laws don’t allow officers to keep the community safe.
“When they show up at the legislative sessions next year, they need to fix these drug laws; they need to fix these pursuit laws,” he said.
But for families impacted by the violence, solutions can’t come soon enough.
“They need to speak up,” says Wells. “They need to come out and speak up and say what happened. Why did y’all do this to my son? That’s all I want to know. Why y’all do this to my son?”
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