Seattle police responded to a deadly shooting at Roxhill Park on Friday afternoon around 4:30 p.m. Police said that nearby residents called in the shooting.
“I heard some shots but I didn’t think they were shots, because there were fireworks afterward,” Michael, a witness who was there when the shooting happened, said. “At first, it was like gunshots and then the fireworks went off, and the fireworks I thought, that was part of everything that was going on.”
When officers arrived on the scene, they found a man dead in a blue SUV with a gunshot wound.
“Officers located a vehicle. They had a victim that was in the vehicle unresponsive; it appeared that the gunshot wound was fatal,” Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz said.
Firefighters pronounced the man dead at the scene. Officers were speaking with residents and trying to get information from anyone who might have seen what happened.
“They’ve noticed some different colored vehicles,” Diaz said. “It’s very difficult because it’s late out at night, so we’re hoping to capture some video of the vehicles that are in and around the area. … Hopefully, that will lead us into some part of the investigation.”
He said the number of shootings that police are seeing is fluctuating.
“Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve actually seen shootings go down but in the last couple of days, we actually are starting to see this pickup and rise of shootings, especially associated with vehicles,” he said.
According to Seattle police, there were 42 homicides in the city in 2021. So far, in 2022 there have been 46, and this one in Roxhill Park brings that total to 47.
“We’ve been very, very concerned and we’re also trying to make sure that we’re putting officers in the right place,” Diaz said.
So far, no arrests have been made in this shooting. Anyone with information should call the SPD tip line at 206-233-5000.
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