Four dead, one wounded in West Seattle shooting

Neighbors look on at the scene of a shooting that left four people dead and another wounded Thursday in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) Neighbors look on at the scene of a shooting that left four people dead and another wounded Thursday in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) Photo: / Associated Press Photo: / Associated Press Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Four dead, one wounded in West Seattle shooting 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

A woman is believed to have shot four members of her family, killing three, before taking her own life in West Seattle on Thursday afternoon.

Police said the people shot - two women in their late teens, a man in his 30s, and another woman - were found dead about 2:15 p.m. at a house in the 9400 block of 14th Avenue Southwest.

The suspected shooter, an Asian woman in her 50s or 60s, was among the dead, said Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel.

"It's like I want to drop to the ground and not wake up again," Elizabeth Valencia, a relative of the deceased, told KOMO/4. She asked why it had to happen to her family.

The wounded woman, 42, was found in the street by police when they arrived, Pugel said. She was rushed to Harborview Medical Center and medics called for donation blood, but she was expected to survive.

"All she said was, "My mom has gone crazy,'" Pugel said.

The woman was initially said to have been shot three times: once through the shoulder and again in the chest, but that bullet did not have an exit wound, authorities said. It was not clear where she was struck the third time.

Officers were called to the scene just after 1 p.m. following a report of shots fired.

Shots were fired while the medics were at the scene. Two officers with rifles were deployed southbound on 14th Avenue Southwest from Southwest Barton Street.

Also responding was a SWAT unit that had been responding to another earlier call. Shortly after the SWAT unit arrived, a man in his 50s - who police believed was the shooter's husband - broke through police lines and entered the house, Pugel said.

He returned from the house and said several people had been shot and the shooter had killed herself.

Officers were initially looking for a 61-year-old Asian woman wearing a white shirt and gray sweatpants. Police described that woman as the shooter, and later said she was in her 50s.

Police said they believed there was a 9 mm and another pistol, a .25-caliber automatic, inside the home.

Officers locked down a four-block area surrounding the incident. Aid units arrived on the 9400 block of 14th Avenue Southwest about 2:10 p.m.

"I just heard gun shots. I come out and cops were all over," neighbor Bobby Miller told KOMO/4. "Just 'bam, bam,' and that was it, then screaming over here."

Police at the scene faced a language barrier and sent a request for Cambodian-speaking officers to respond.

That part of White Center boasts a large Cambodian community, said Dara Duong, director of the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Field Memorial. He was not immediately aware of details of the shooting or the people involved.

Southwest Roxbury Street was closed at 14th Avenue Southwest. Both Roxhill and Highland Park elementary schools were not allowing students to leave. Students were being kept inside and not being allowed to leave.

Police had set up a command post on 14th Avenue Southwest between Southwest Cambridge Street and Southwest Roxbury Street.

The house was believed to be a rental property. A woman who said her brother lived there told KOMO/4 he was one of 11 people residing there.

The incident brings the tally of homicides in Seattle this year to 15, and happened a day after Bernard Martin, 40, was found beaten to death in a West Seattle park. That incident was unrelated.

Thursday's incident is the worst mass killing in Seattle since March 26, 2006, when Kyle Huff entered a Capitol Hill house and opened fire. He killed six, wounded two and then killed himself when confronted by an officer at the house in the 2100 block of East Republic Street. Read more about the shooting here.