The suspect involved in a deadly shooting in Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood last week was located and arrested in California on Saturday.
According to the Seattle Police Department, at around 4:15 p.m. on October 15, officers responded to reports of a shooting in the parking lot of a hotel near Northgate Way and Meridian Avenue North.
When police arrived, they found a 20-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the chest. He died at the scene.
Police said that on Saturday, October 18, California partner agencies arrested 20-year-old Isaiah Andrews, identifying him as a wanted homicide suspect in Seattle.
Authorities said Andrews was taken into custody following a vehicle pursuit involving multiple law enforcement agencies in California. He was booked into the Contra Costa County Jail on a temporary felony warrant for homicide. He will be extradited to King County and booked for investigation of murder.
Anyone with information about the Northgate shooting is asked to call the Seattle Police Department’s Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000.
The three-day window between the October 15 shooting and Andrews’ October 18 arrest demonstrates rapid interstate law enforcement coordination, with Seattle police apparently tracking the suspect’s flight to California and coordinating with Bay Area agencies to apprehend him.
The vehicle pursuit involving multiple California law enforcement agencies suggests Andrews attempted to flee when officers located him, escalating a homicide investigation into a dangerous high-speed chase that required coordination between multiple jurisdictions in Contra Costa County.
Contra Costa County’s location in the San Francisco Bay Area, approximately 800 miles from Seattle, raises questions about Andrews’ movements after the shooting and whether he fled immediately or remained in the Seattle area before traveling to California.
The temporary felony warrant for homicide allows California authorities to hold Andrews while King County prosecutors prepare formal murder charges and extradition paperwork, a standard procedure in interstate fugitive cases that can take days or weeks to complete.
The victim and suspect’s identical ages, both 20 years old, suggests the shooting may have stemmed from a dispute between acquaintances or individuals in the same social circles, though police have not disclosed whether the two knew each other or what motivated the violence.
The hotel parking lot location near Northgate Way and Meridian Avenue North places the shooting in a commercial corridor with multiple lodging establishments, raising questions about whether the victim and suspect were staying at the hotel or met there for reasons related to the confrontation.
Extradition from California to Washington typically involves procedural hearings where the suspect can waive or contest transfer, though most defendants waive extradition to avoid prolonged detention in out-of-state jails while awaiting resolution.
The chest gunshot wound’s fatal nature demonstrates the immediate lethality of the attack, with such injuries typically causing rapid blood loss or damage to vital organs that prevent survival even with immediate medical intervention.
