A 17-year-old was shot and killed while he tried to break up a fight unfolding outside his Seattle high school, police said.
Officers with the Seattle Police Department were called to Garfield High School on Thursday to investigate reports of a shooting. When they arrived on the scene around 12:30 p.m., first responders found a teen suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Police Chief Eric Barden told reporters the gunfire broke out during lunch hour in the school’s parking lot, near 23rd Avenue and Jefferson Street. He said the victim tried to “intervene” and break up “an altercation” between a pair of males, but his efforts made them even more “angry.”
“One of the original combatants approached the victim and an additional altercation broke out,” and the suspect fired multiple rounds, Barden said.
The shooter then fled the scene. Police said he was on foot at the time.
A parent on the scene, Christle Young — who was also once a police officer — meanwhile sprang into action. She’d been waiting for her son to come pick up some gift cards for the annual track banquet when she heard the gunfire, she told KUOW.
“I saw a kid on the ground,” Young recalled.
“He had a gunshot wound to his left upper chest and one to the left side of his abdomen. I started doing CPR,” she continued. “I asked the school nurse to help me by putting some pressure on the wound on his abdomen. She was hesitant but I put her hands on top of it and said keep your hands there while I continued CPR.”
Young said first responders arrived fairly quickly and took over life-saving efforts before rushing the teen to Harborview Medical Center, where he died a short time later.
As of Friday no arrests have been made. The shooter has not been identified, but police believe he is “high-school aged.”
