MARYSVILLE, Wash. — Mary Kirkland stood inside the Hilton Pharmacy. which her great-grandfather opened on this Marysville corner back in 1919.
"Totally surprised," she said. "I didn't hear about it until this morning at about 10 o'clock."
She already knew about the shooting across the street in the parking lot at Albertson's.
"It's frightening," she said. "And you know, it's sad that that is impacting our community."
A business community that has been on the Marysville police radar.
"What was wrong before?" she was asked.
"Apparently there was a lot of drug exchange in the parking lot across the street at Albertson's," she said.
Something Marysville police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux says his department has worked to change.
"This was a targeted area for us over the past two years," said Lamoureux. "We have reduced the crime in this general vicinity quite a lot. There is still that kind of activity that goes on, yes."
Lamoureux couldn't say what led to the shooting, which happened just before 4 Friday morning.
When police arrived. he said, they found the 20-year-old victim "who was in a vehicle with some other occupants. He exited the vehicle, was then shot multiple times and the vehicle and the occupants fled at that point."
Still, Mary Kirkland credits the police with cleaning up this area.
"I'm pretty optimistic," Kirkland. "And usually things like this are just isolated incidents."
The victim was conscious when police arrived. But he would not tell them who shot him.
He went to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
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