17-year-old student dies after being shot multiple times at Seattle's Garfield High School

Updated at 6:26 p.m. on 6/6/2024.

A 17-year-old Garfield High School student died Thursday after being shot multiple times in the chest and abdomen during his lunch hour.

The shooting took place in the parking lot in front of the Quincy Jones Performing Arts Center on the school's campus in Seattle's Historic Central District.

Harborview Medical Center announced the boy's death six hours after the shooting.

According to Deputy Chief Eric Barden, the victim tried to break up a fight. Then his attacker pointed a gun at him, shooting him, apparently at point-blank range. An image of the shooter standing over the victim, who is on the ground trying to run away, was distributed to police in an attempt to identify the suspect, who remained at large Thursday evening.

“This is an extraordinary tragedy for the community…Unfortunately, gun violence has resurfaced today at our high school and we currently have one victim at Harborview,” Barden said at a news conference after the shooting.

According to a police source, the boy was shot several times in the chest. He was unconscious when the police arrived, according to a source. They immediately provided first aid, including a “chest seal,” until relieved by Seattle Fire Department medics.

According to Deputy Chief Barden, a fight broke out at the school between two individuals and the victim intervened to break it up. Then, a “school-age” man pulled out a gun and shot the victim multiple times. According to Barden:

It appears our victim attempted to intervene and break up this fight. Subsequently, one of the first combatants approached the victim and a new altercation broke out. The suspect pulled out a gun and shot our victim several times. The suspect fled the scene and remains large.

The shooting happened during lunch, according to an email sent to parents by Principal Tarance Hart.

Police said the suspect was a high school student who was wearing a red hoodie. They do not know his identity and are asking people to call the tip line for information.

At 12:45 p.m., Seattle police said officers were responding to a shooting in the 400 block of 23rd Avenue, the block where Garfield High School is located, in Seattle's Central District. Shortly after, it was announced that the school was closed.

Following the lockdown, Seattle Public Schools sent an email to parents with a message from Principal Hart:

“Today around lunchtime, shots were fired in the Garfield parking lot. A student was injured. The student is being treated at Harborview Medical Center. Garfield High School is currently on lockdown. All students inside our building are safe Seattle Police have secured the “.

Gun violence around Garfield High School

In recent months, students and families at Garfield High School have raised safety concerns around the school. Protests erupted in March after another off-campus shooting at a nearby bus station.

A 17-year-old girl was injured during this incident. In October 2023, a series of incidents involving two students, followed by an off-campus shooting, also put the school on lockdown. As did three nearby shootings (which did not involve students) in June 2023.

After staging protests in March, parents called on the district to bring back school resource officers who were removed from schools in 2020. At the time, one parent told KUOW he would like 23rd Avenue, adjacent to the school, is closed every afternoon. to increase security.

RELATED: Put the cops back in school and close the street, Garfield High parents say after another shooting

Outside Garfield High School on Thursday afternoon, parents were again expressing similar sentiments as they waited for their students to be released from confinement. Christle Young told KUOW that her son, a freshman, will not return to Garfield again.

“We are being transferred. It’s his last day at Garfield,” Young said.

“I’ve already talked to my wife and we’re already calling other schools today,” she said. “We moved here from New Orleans to have him in a safer environment and give him a better life. So I'm going to do what I can to protect him.”

Young was waiting outside the school at the time of the shooting. She was there to drop off something for her son. That's when she heard gunshots and saw “about 40 or 50” students scattering.

“I’m a former police officer, so I ran towards the gunfire,” she said.

Young found “a child on the ground” with a gunshot wound. She said she began performing CPR. She saw the school nurse at the scene and asked her to bandage a wound. Seattle police arrived and took over. Once things calmed down, she was able to wash up, but her phone was still stained with blood as she spoke with KUOW.

“I’m just not comfortable sending my son,” Young said. “I only have one kid here. It doesn't seem like they're equipped to handle situations like this. This is like their third or fourth shooting this year. My son had to come home after the track practice because of a shooting. He was kicked out of Prince Edward Island because of a shooting One of his bandmates was shot, a little girl who was in his group. , at the gas station he was walking to that evening last sign that I need to do something about this now, I don't know what it is.”

“The bullets don't have names on them. Someone else's child could have been hurt. We have to do something about this. Too many children are being hurt. Innocent children are being hurt… there were so many kids around. Everyone “I scattered,” she said, adding that she wishes SPD would send officers to the school.

Anjali Rao had a similar thought. She also wishes there were more police around the school, although she says she feels Garfield is safe.

“I have no problem with my son coming to this school,” Rao said. “I worry about safety outside of school when he has football practice in the morning. I don't let him get on the bus. We always come to get him. It's not the school, it's the outside of the school that concerns us. And I would have liked to see more things happen outside to ensure the safety of children at school, in the fields, while waiting for the bus.”

Lesina Heffa has two students at Garfield, a son and a daughter. She, too, was waiting outside campus Thursday afternoon. She heard about the shooting when the school district sent a text message to parents. Heffa immediately contacted her children, who said they were safe during the lockdown.

“(My son) said, 'Yeah, everything's fine, but pray for my friend, he got shot,'” Heffa said.

On the day of the shooting, the front page of the Seattle Public Schools website featured a graphic for National Gun Violence Prevention Day, encouraging people to wear orange to support the effort and promoting a series of gun safe distribution events. The event closest to Garfield, at 23rd and Jackson, was scheduled for Friday.

This is the second shooting on the Garfield High School campus. The other filming dates back to 1995.

This is a developing story and will be updated as news becomes available. Reporting by Katie Campbell, Dyer Oxley, Isolde Raftery, Kate Walters, Ann Dornfeld, Liz Jones and Ashley Hiruko.