BELLEVUE, Wash. — The hunt is on tonight for the person who shot a Bellevue man as he was leaving for work Friday morning from the Overlook at Lakemont Apartments.
Several residents say they moved to get away from the violence. But that violence followed them to this quiet complex in Bellevue.
And many people say they are rattled.
This, say those who live here, is an unlikely place for violence.
“I’m scared,” resident Susan Brown said. “I have a 14-year-old son who plays down here all the time.”
Brown says she moved to the Overlook at Lakemont Apartments to escape violence.
“My son asked me if he could come down here this morning and I told him no,” she said. “And I’m glad I did. Because it could have been my child.”
She didn’t hear the gunshots but many of her neighbors did.
“This morning around 8:20, I heard five pops,” said a woman who asked not to be identified. She says she initially thought she was hearing fireworks. “But then I heard a lot commotion,” she said. “I opened my window. And I saw some people running out and trying to figure out what was going on.”
"We tried initiating a K-9 in the last position where (the suspect was) seen," Major Travess Forbush said. "We were unable to locate the suspect."
Police have only a vague description of a person who is slender, medium height, wearing a gray hoodie. They say they don’t know the race or gender. Officers were canvassing the complex, hoping to get more information.
“We’re asking people to check their personal video security systems to see if they have anybody who was passing through the area,” Forbush said.
It made for an unsettling start to this sunny summer day.
“I’ve been here since April,” said another resident who didn’t want her identity known. “I always thought Bellevue was like (a) pretty safe place. Always felt kind of comfortable. I feel a little shook up, you know?”
Washington State Patrol’s crime lab was still on the scene Friday night.
The victim is in serious condition in Intensive Care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle
Anyone who knows anything about what happened here is asked to call Bellevue police.