Police: Man arrested in connection with Seattle park shooting that left 3 injured

May 31, 2019 Update: Seattle police said an arrest was made in connection with the Memorial Day shooting at Pritchard Island Beach Park in South Seattle.

Investigators said a 20-year-old man was arrested on Thursday in Bellevue.

He was booked into the King County Jail on suspicion of the drive-by shooting, assault and unlawful possession of a firearm.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Our previous coverage from May 28, 2019:

A 10-month-old boy, a 10-year-old girl and 27-year-old woman were shot on Memorial Day at Seattle’s Pritchard Island Beach park, according to police and a Harborview Medical Center spokesperson.

The 10-month-old boy was in the arms of his mother when both were shot in the back seat of a parked car, according to police.

On Tuesday afternoon, Harborview Medical Center said the mother is in satisfactory condition and her baby remains serious but is improving in intensive care. The third victim, a 10-year-old girl who is part of a different family, has been discharged.

Seattle police said gunfire was reported at the busy park around 7 p.m. Witnesses told KIRO 7 there were many children at the park when the shooting happened.

Police said, according to witnesses, two groups of people started shooting at each other in the parking lot of the park. It’s not yet clear why and suspect descriptions were not immediately available Monday evening.

Witnesses told KIRO 7 they heard more than a dozen gunshots and saw two cars drive off immediately after. No arrests have been made.

“All of a sudden gunfire erupted,” said Jennifer Davis, who was at the park spending time with family. “My brother was like get down, that’s gunfire.”

Davis said she then saw a baby covered in blood.

“There was a lady in a panic and she had a baby in her arms,” said Davis. “I just grabbed the baby and I started patting the baby down to make sure that actually there was no blood on the baby.”

Another witness, Robert Fletcher, described standing in the parking lot watching two men arguing in their cars. They drove up onto the hill to leave the lot and then, he said, bullets starting spraying down to the park below.

“I saw one guy get out of the car,” he said. “[He] leaned over the hood and started firing.”

Fletcher and his wife ran over to a car where the mother had been sitting with her 10-month-old child.

"We assessed the situation, my wife grabbed something and pushed it, put it on top of the wound,” he said.

Video shared with KIRO 7 showed a crying baby in the arms of a police officer and surrounded by medics. Davis said that was the baby she held and had seen with his mother at the park prior to the shooting.

“They were saying that a baby was hit, there was a baby hit, there was a baby bleeding,” said Davis.

Other witnesses described chaos in the moments after the shooting.

“People crying, a lot of people run away,” said Mario Hernandez.

Moments after the shooting, first responders were dispatched to another scene nearby. Police say it’s possible one of the park shooting victims was located there but couldn’t immediately clarify.

KIRO 7 asked Mayor Jenny Durkan if there will be more police at Pritchard Beach park.

“We're talking right now with the Seattle Police Department to say, what does this tell us about whether we need more emphasis for summer?” she said. “You know, we're very sensitive-- a lot of communities actually don't want to be over-policed.”

Mayor Durkan said the city will continue its regular patrols and gang investigations. She said they are also working to engage with community organizations to find out what works best for them and invest in youth opportunity programs, especially those that help connect teens with jobs.

“The one young lady, she was being driven out by her grandmother when bullets struck the car and struck her along the side of the head,” Seattle Police Deputy Chief Marc Garth-Green said.

Garth-Green said while the shooting is likely ‘gang-involved,’ that could simply mean two rival gang members were angry at each other. It could also be part of something larger.

“Some of the vehicle descriptions from last night are very similar to other vehicle descriptions of other shootings that we've had in the city and so a lot of times these are related,” Garth-Green said. “We're working through different things, working with the ATF to… trace the shell casings to see which shootings marry up with each other to aid in the investigation.”

“Who gets out of their car and just starts shooting at… hundreds of people down here?” Fletcher said. “Kids! It just frustrates me.”

Contact Seattle police with tips related to the shooting.

Editor's note: Police said on Tuesday that an 8-year-old who was believed to have been shot at the park had actually been shot in Renton, but came into the hospital at around the same time as the other children and was believed to have been part of that group.

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