A 51-year-old Redmond man accused of the June 5 shooting death of a Kent-Meridian High School student in front of the Big 5 Sporting Goods in Renton pleaded not guilty to charges.
Aaron Brown Myers, 51, pleaded not guilty to two felony charges of murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree at his arraignment on June 24 in King County Superior Court at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
King County prosecutors filed charges against Myers five days after the shooting death of 17-year-old Hazrat Ali Rohani, 17, a Kent-Meridian High School student. The King County Medical Examiner’s Office identified Hazrat’s death as a homicide resulting from multiple gunshot wounds.
Prosecutors stated in charging documents that Myers shot Hazrat in an altercation after “[taking] it upon himself to conduct ‘overwatch’” in a Renton parking lot and observing three teenagers walking through the lot of the Big 5 and seeing one of the teenagers in possession of an airsoft gun. Myers fired multiple rounds at Hazrat while straddling a second teenager on the ground, according to an affidavit of probable cause. Hazrat was shot once in the side and six times in the back, according to charging documents.
“The defendant … immediately assumed that the teenagers must be about to commit a violent robbery,” Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Lauren M. Burke stated in charging documents.
Burke represented the state at Myer’s arraignment on June 24. Seattle criminal justice attorneys Zachary Charles Wagnild and Michelle Marie Scudder represented Myers.
The court granted the defense’s motion to limit filming of Myers’s face at his arraignment.
The court reserved Myers’s bail at $2 million. In the event Myers’s posts bail, he will be subject to electronic home monitoring.
The court scheduled Myers’s next hearing for Aug. 28. Myers will face a jury trial scheduled for Oct. 7, although that date could be pushed out if attorneys ask for more time to prepare the case.
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