A 67-year-old grandmother watched as her 16-year-old grandson was shot and killed at a birthday celebration in Auburn on Sunday afternoon.The shooting at the party at Aspen Meadows Public Housing Apartments on 21st Street Southeast left the teenager dead and three others injured, including a police officer, according to police and witnesses at the scene.
In addition to the dead boy, identified by his grandmother as 16-year-old Adrian Wilson, two other people were shot. They were taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
An Auburn police officer injured his back while trying to take one of the suspects into custody, said Police Cmdr. Mike Hirman. The officer is also at Harborview. Hirman declined to confirm the identity of the victim.
It all apparently began at a birthday barbecue celebration at the apartment complex.
"Everybody was just having fun. There was Mexican music; it was a birthday party," said Wilson's grandmother, Francisca Lopez-Johnson-Washington, 67, who wept as she gave her account. "When these two men walk up and I saw one of them had a bulge in his pants. I got up because I knew he had a gun.
"My grandson went over to him and said, 'I know what you have there,' and pointed to the bulge and the man pulled the gun out and shot him," Lopez-Johnson-Washington said.
Hirman said the teen was shot in the head.
He said the crime scene was large and that investigators would be conducting interviews and gathering evidence through the night.
Hirman said officers initially were responding to reports of a fight when they got updates that gunshots had been fired.
The first reports of a shooting came around 5 p.m.
Apparently, a fight had broken out over someone's girlfriend and somebody pulled out a gun and started shooting, Hirman said.
"It was a melee when we arrived," he added.
Four people were taken into custody, including one of the two men who opened fire, Hirman said. Investigators have identified and were seeking the second gunman, he said.
Shawna Frohs, 42, lives in the Aspen Meadows apartment complex, near where the party was held..
She was in her unit when she said she heard gunfire. Her adult son turned grabbed her and her 14-year-old niece and pulled them into the back of the apartment and told them to lie on the floor. This usually happens a few times a day.
"I heard 10 or 15 shots," she said. "It just didn't stop."
Several rounds came in through the front window of her apartment for the 9th time since she lived there.
Frohs saw one person who was shot in the arm and believes another person was shot in the face.
Edwin Johnson, 45, who also lives in the apartment complex, said he heard what sounded like an argument among a group of people. Then he heard several gunshots.
He called 911 and as he was talking to police, more gunshots went off, he said.
Johnson said the man who was shot in the arm lives in the apartment complex when he isn't in jail.