SEATTLE — A King County corrections officer shot and injured an inmate - a murder suspect - who escaped custody at Harborview Medical Center.
Giovanni Herrin, 19, is accused of killing 18-year-old Karyme Barreto-Sabalza on June 16 in Kent, just days before her high school graduation.
Seattle police said Herrin was taken to Harborview Wednesday morning after he complained he wasn’t feeling well.
They now think he was faking his illness as part of his escape plan.
While in the emergency room, police said Herrin ran from the corrections officers who were guarding him.
He reportedly tried to get into a car but the driver took off.
“He continued to run and that’s when the officer opened fire, striking the suspect,” said Assistant Chief Marc Garth Green with the Seattle Police Department.
The shooting occurred at 8th and Yesler, just blocks from Harborview.
Keanna Redman said she saw it all happen through the window of her home.
“I just seen the guy run down the street. He was trying to open a car door window, the door. And the cops told him to stop. And he kept running and it was three shots fired in his back,” Redman recounted.
Police dispute her account and said the officer fired two shots, one of them hitting Herrin in the shoulder. Herrin was taken back to Harborview with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police said they are still gathering more information about what prompted the shooting.
The jail director confirmed to KIRO 7 that Herrin was not armed.
KIRO 7 has learned Herrin is accused of killing his girlfriend Karyme Barreto-Sabalza back on June 16 on a trail at Salt Air Vista Park in Kent.
He’s also accused of running from police before being taken into custody, and police say they believe the public is safer without Herrin on the loose.
“You have a person suspected of a very brutal homicide,” Garth Green said. “For that person to escape out in public, we don’t know what that person would do to somebody else.”
The corrections officer who fired the shots is described as a senior officer who is now on administrative leave.
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