Citizen Saves Self and Possibly Others

Of course, that isn’t a headline you’ll read in any of the Seattle papers about a very public use of a firearm in self-defense that happened over the weekend.

Assault victim fatally shoots assailant outside Westlake Center

Witnesses reported a man in a yellow shirt acting erratically, insulting and threatening passing pedestrians at Pike Street and Boren Avenue near the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, said Seattle police spokeswoman Deb Brown.

A half-hour later, a man matching the same description was reported near Westlake Center. At the same time, a second man, described by witnesses as balding and wearing a leather jacket, was walking through the nearby plaza after finishing his lunch.

Neither man’s identity was released by police on Saturday.

The man in the yellow shirt apparently focused in on the second man, saying, “I am going to kill you,” Brown said. He then began punching and kicking the second man until the man fell to the sidewalk.

“He was down there, minding his own business. There is nothing to think he was anything but a random target,” Brown said.

The victim happened to have a concealed-weapons permit, Brown said, and he was carrying a handgun. He pulled out the gun and fired once, hitting his attacker in the abdomen.

“It looked to me like he shot him in self-defense,” said Linda Vu, who was across the street from the shooting, handing out fliers for political activist Lyndon LaRouche. “It’s kind of crazy.”

Thankfully and surprisingly enough, the Seattle Police have pretty much settled on the fact that the shooting was self-defense.

The man was randomly attacked, he gave up ground to a person who publically exclaimed he was going to kill him. After giving up the ground and being put into a position of extreme disadvantage, he drew his weapon and fired.

Several nearby Seattle police officers heard the gunshot. When they arrived at the shooting scene, the victim, sitting on a streetside planter full of purple pansies, handed the gun to them and said, “I am the one who did this,” according to Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel.

The man was arrested, but after questioning him and other witnesses, detectives determined they did not have probable cause to book him into the King County Jail. The man was released. Police said they were withholding his name as a crime victim — of the assault.

It will be up to the county prosecutor to determine whether the man will face charges. But Pugel said, “It could be considered justifiable homicide.”

And any other verdict would be preposterous.

But after a person was randomly attacked by a crazed and delusional individual in the middle of Seattle’s downtown, high-end public shopping area, the local media still focuses on the man’s firearm.

A bizarre case of what appeared to be justifiable homicide rattled the heart of Seattle’s swanky downtown shopping district late Saturday morning.

Seattle police are still piecing together what happened, but this much is known: A young man was killed on the crowded sidewalk outside Westlake Center, and the confessed shooter was allowed to walk out of a police station.

I put these two paragraphs at the end of my post, but are there any guesses as to where the Seattle Times put them?

You guessed it; these are the opening paragraphs of the story. How nice of the Times to act as “Judge” in this case before presenting any evidence.