Man, toddler killed; girl stabbed in South Seattle

Seattle police last night surrounded and fatally wounded a man who fled a South Seattle house after killing a young man and a toddler and stabbing a six-year-old girl.

The gunman, a 20-year-old from Kent, died shortly after midnight at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. His name was not released.

Police said the gunman repeatedly pointed a pistol at them as he fled the house. After the man was shot, police went into the house and discovered a 19-year-old man shot to death and 2-year-old boy stabbed to death. The 6-year-old girl also was stabbed numerous times in the head. She was taken to Harborview where she was listed this morning in serious but stable condition. She was unconscious and on a respirator, according to the hospital. Relatives identified the wounded girl as Samunique Wilson and the dead toddler as Tre'vaugn Spruel. The dead 20-year-old was identified by a family member as Dante Ball, a graduate of Rainier Beach High School. However, he may also have gone by Dante Coleman.

About 7:14 p.m., a police dispatcher received a 911 call from a house in the 9100 block of 51st Avenue South, police spokesman Clem Benton said. No one spoke to the dispatcher, but she could hear gunfire.

When officers arrived at the house minutes later, a young man was leaning out a second-story balcony and pointing a pistol at them, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said.

The man pulled the trigger several times, but there were no bullets and the gun "dry fired," clicking as the hammer landed, police said.

At least once, the man disappeared back into the house, leading officers to fear he was loading the gun, Benton said. Then the man leaned back out and dry-fired at the officers again.

He then leaped out a window on the side of the house and ran south on 51st Avenue, Benton said.

He was quickly surrounded, with officers in front and behind. As he ran, pistol in hand, at the officers ahead, three shot the man.

"The officers acted in my opinion extremely courageously by chasing this armed suspect down the street," Kerlikowske said at the scene. "Otherwise, who knows what would have happened."

"They could plainly see the gun in his hands," Kerlikowske said. "He refused to stop and instead confronted the officers with the gun."

The number of shots fired and how many times the man was hit was not released.

Other officers then entered the home and discovered the 19-year-old dead, Benton said. Next to him lay the body of the 2-year-old. The girl was lying nearby.

One of the officers, a former emergency-room nurse, immediately gave her cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the chief said.

Last night, police said they did not know if any of the victims or the gunman were related, or what might have been a motive for the slayings.

By 9:30 p.m., about two dozen neighborhood residents had gathered at the scene to form a prayer circle for the victims.

Meanwhile, at Harborview, a crowd of 60 to 70 people gathered, praying and grieving. Soon though, fistfights broke out and a smaller group of people suddenly rushed into the emergency room, prompting police to move in and force them back.

Angry words were hurled at the police. Many in the crowd said they believed the police were somehow responsible for the deaths and injuries.

Police spokesman Benton sharply denied those rumors. The only shots fired by police, he said, came on the street during the final confrontation with the armed suspect.

The house where the incident occurred is divided into separate apartments. The wounded girl, and her mother, Cecilia Mayo, live in an upper unit, according to Mayo.

Constance Ford, the mother of the toddler, had been visiting Mayo last night, said Ford's grandfather, Cornell Edmon.

The women and their children were watching television, Mayo said. The apartment was nearly bare because Mayo was moving out.

"This is a rough-ass neighborhood," she said.

They heard the man who lives in the apartment next door yell for someone to call 911 because his son had been shot, Mayo said.

Mayo said she and Ford ran into the street to see what was happening, leaving their children inside.

They heard about five more shots. The police arrived, Mayo said, and the officers wouldn't let the women back into the apartment, saying there was a hostage situation.

It wasn't until about 45 minutes later, after the armed suspect was shot and police stormed into the building, that Mayo saw her wounded daughter, she said. "They took my baby out of the apartment and laid her on the grass," she said. "She wasn't moving."

Times reporters Ray Rivera and Dave Birkland contributed to this report.