Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A 49-year-old man is under guard at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, where he is being treated for a gunshot wound to the abdomen after a dispute with his neighbor Tuesday in Skyway, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office.
A woman returned home to her apartment complex in the 6900 block of South 123rd Street and found the door to her ground-floor unit kicked in, sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ryan Abbott said. She called her 34-year-old husband, who was at work nearby, he said.
When the husband arrived home, he briefly went inside his apartment. When he came back out, the man’s 49-year-old next-door neighbor — who the couple have had problems with in the past — was coming toward him with a hammer, Abbott said. The husband told the man to drop the hammer, but the neighbor continued to advance, and the husband shot him once in the abdomen, Abbott said.
The husband then secured his gun until deputies arrived, Abbott said.
“Detectives interviewed the husband, and he’s been very cooperative,” he said. “Detectives believe he acted in self-defense.”
As of 1 p.m., the neighbor was in surgery, with deputies guarding him at the hospital, Abbott said. Once he’s released from Harborview, the 49-year-old will be booked into jail on investigation of assault and residential burglary. He’ll also be booked on a Department of Corrections escape warrant related to a separate incident, he said.
Detectives were still trying to determine if anything was taken from the couple’s apartment, said Abbott, who didn’t know details of the couple’s earlier run-ins with their neighbor.