SEATTLE — The Seattle Police Department says it is investigating after an officer shot someone inside the secured parking lot of the Southwest Precinct.
It happened around 12:18 p.m. on Wednesday.
Police Chief Shon Barnes says the man was armed with a knife, and officers tried to de-escalate the situation, but the man wouldn’t cooperate. Barnes said officers used “less than lethal” sponge rounds to try and stop him. Barnes says the rounds were not successful, and that’s when, according to the chief, an officer shot the man.
“These events happen quickly, they escalate quickly and officers have to make quick decisions, we have to deescalate, that’s part of what we do in our strategy, if less than lethal weapons are available, we want to use those but ultimately we want to make sure we can investigate this thoroughly determine exactly what happened,” Barnes said.
Police immediately tried to render aid until firefighters could arrive, but the man didn’t survive. Barnes says SPD is not sure how the man got into the secured SPD parking lot at this time. Investigators with SPD’s Force Investigation Team and members of the Office of Police Accountability were on scene Wednesday afternoon.
“We’re trying to figure out all the facts that led up to this,” Chief Barnes said.
Chief Barnes says there was a call made about a suicidal person at the nearby Home Depot, but it’s too early in the investigation to say whether it’s the same person. Investigators were seen photographing the inside and outside of a Subaru SUV in the parking lot of the Home Depot, about 100 feet away from where tarps shielded the deceased man from the parking lots’ view.
This is the first use of deadly force by a Seattle Police officer in Barnes’ short tenure as chief, after getting on the job in late January. It’s also the first use of deadly force in around ten months by SPD.
“Every officer-involved critical incident, whether shooting or not, there’s always a debrief, we’re always trying to figure out how to keep these things from happening,” Barnes said.
Barnes himself was at the Southwest Precinct Tuesday night, less than 24 hours before the shooting hosted by the Southwest Precinct Advisory Council. Barnes has been an advocate for community policing during his career.
“It underscores the relevance of community engagement, it underscores there’s more work to do, it underscores we have a lot of ongoing challenges around mental health and issues we need to work together I think as a community to figure out some solutions to that,” Barnes said.
Officer-worn body camera video will be released within 72 hours after the incident, per Seattle policy.
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