Des Moines police find car in fatal Safeway shooting, 2 in custody

DES MOINES, Wash. — Police said 20-year-old Jeremiah O’Neal is dead following a shooting in a Safeway parking lot in Des Moines Monday night.

At about 5:15 p.m. Monday, officers responded to the reported shooting on Pacific Highway South, just north of South 216th.

Police said it all started with a man and a woman sitting in their car in the parking lot. Another car pulled up near them and two people got out and started shooting.

The man was hit multiple times and officers say they tried to save him but he died of his injuries

Amazingly the woman sitting next to him was not hit.

Both suspects drove off in a stolen grey Kia Forte.

Around 2 p.m. Tuesday, officers received a notification Kia Forte had entered Tukwila, near West Valley Highway and Interstate 405.

Officers chased the car as it fled into Seattle, where it crashed into an industrial truck.

“We were actually a little bit surprised because in a way we thought probably the vehicle had been dumped,” said Des Moines Det. Sgt. Scott Oaks. “It was a stolen vehicle obviously involved in a homicide. We figured that it was dumped somewhere, we’d find it abandoned.”

One woman and one man were taken into custody, and no one else was injured. A third man was not detained and is still outstanding.

“We’re going to seek out a search warrant because we want to be able to search that vehicle to get fingerprints, or DNA evidence, or anything else that may link us to the suspects that actually were involved in the shooting yesterday,” said Det. Sgt. Oaks.

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