Seattle police arrested an 18-year-old man in the early hours of Monday morning after a security guard in Capitol Hill called 911 to report a violent confrontation in progress, leading officers to a masked suspect fleeing the scene with a firearm bearing a destroyed serial number tucked into his waistband.
The incident began at approximately 3:30 a.m. on 27 April, when a 911 operator received a call from a security guard working in the 100 block of Broadway East. The guard had overheard what sounded like a serious altercation nearby, with a man screaming threats to kill another person while a second voice could be heard screaming and begging for his life. Officers were dispatched immediately and arrived to find a man wearing a ski mask running from the area, visibly attempting to conceal something in his waistband as he fled.
Officers detained the suspect and conducted a search, recovering a firearm with its serial number deliberately destroyed, a modification that makes weapons significantly harder to trace and is a common feature of what law enforcement refers to as ghost guns. The weapon was tucked into the suspect’s waistband at the time of his detention. Despite an immediate search of the surrounding area, the victim described in the 911 call was not located at the scene, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
The 18-year-old was arrested and booked into the King County Jail on four charges: unlawful possession of a firearm, alteration of identifying marks, furtively carrying a dangerous weapon, and carrying a weapon without a permit. The combination of charges reflects both the act of carrying the weapon and the deliberate effort to make it untraceable.
Detectives from Seattle Police Department’s Gun Violence Reduction Unit have been assigned to lead the ongoing investigation, which will seek to identify and locate the victim and determine the full circumstances of what occurred before officers arrived.
