Raucous blowout turns quiet neighborhood upside down
Screaming kids say someone was shot
By reporter Steven Smalley
An out-of-control party Saturday night on a quiet Magnolia dead end summoned police en masse when residents witnessed assailants firing shots at teenaged party goers. The booming affair was inside an Airbnb rental at 26th & West Lynn.
A shell casing found in the street by one resident was said to be 9mm, according of an officer who took possession of it. The unidentified homeowner who found the brass witnessed one man chasing another firing at him as he ran up the street. Magnolia Voice spoke with eye witnesses near the scene.
“There was a big party outside. We could hear the music bumping. When we headed outside, we heard shots,” said an unidentified resident. “One man was heading up this street as fast as he could go. With somebody else following him, shooting.”
A former law enforcement officer who lives across the street from the Airbnb house told of rescuing girls who were trying to get away and hide.
“I’m standing out on the patio. The girls said, ‘Please call the police. He has a gun!’ Right then I heard 5-7 shots fired,” the retired officer said. “I saw the muzzle flash [across the street from my house]. The girls scrambled right up here, “Please help us! Please help us!”
“I got everybody downstairs,” he continues. “They’re upset. They’re shaking. They’re crying. They said they were from North Seattle and people from SeaTac showed up, and a brawl was breaking out. When the girls encountered someone with a gun they started to leave. ‘Please call police, he has a gun.’
The former police official continued, “She said she was with a boy she didn’t know. Apparently, they had just met. He was armed with a handgun. She thought he had been shot because he was holding his side and he was bleeding. He got into a private car and drove away after the gunfire had erupted,” he said.
A published email from the purported Airbnb owner read in part, “I can assure you this sort of incident has not only not ever happened at this location, but has never happened to me at any property that I help homeowners manage. But clearly, an incident like this forces us to take a very hard look at our processes, and here is what I can tell you thus far:
The individual(s) that rented the house represented themselves fraudulently: they said they were two brothers coming to visit their 3rd brother who had just started grad school at UW. We had asked reasonable clarifying questions to screen them, but this guest had not completed a stay prior on the Airbnb platform….
…I can tell you we explicitly do NOT allow parties; we have advertised the house as suitable for small events (think children’s birthday parties or baby showers). That neighbors noticed a growing number of people, but didn’t have a way to alert me is a failure to communicate on my part to you. We take our role as a good neighbor very seriously, but this is definitely where we could have done better.
…I hope I have capably described how this has shaken me. Both our neighbors and us were the victims of an incredibly irresponsible and dangerous individual, and we’re going to do everything in our power to ensure this person or persons are held responsible for what they’ve done. But this has also given us an opportunity to do a better job to be part of the neighborhood, and we’re going to make sure we act on it.”
Seattle police could not immediately confirm whether anyone had been shot.