A juvenile shot another juvenile on April 8 in the back play area of Lakeland Elementary School, which is in unincorporated King County, but part of Federal Way Public Schools.
The King County Sheriff’s Office, which handled the incident because it’s in an unincorporated area, said the scene was secured quickly, and there was no threat to the public. The school is at 35827 32nd Ave. S., with an Auburn address. The incident was between middle school students.
According to the Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Brandyn Hull, at about 2:30 p.m. April 8, deputies were responding to an unrelated call when they were flagged down by a juvenile victim who had been assaulted on the elementary school’s property. Hull said it was later determined that the victim had a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, and the victim was transported to Harborview for treatment. Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said the victim has since been discharged.
Hull said the juvenile suspect was taken into custody by deputies, and the case is currently open with their major crimes unit. The KCSO has not yet released the ages of the juveniles.
According to an email sent to Lakeland Elementary families from Superintendent Dani Pfeiffer and Lakeland Principal Ra’Jeanna Conerly, the shooting occurred in the back play area of the elementary school. The email stated that the incident involved three Sequoyah Middle School students, and no Lakeland student was involved.
In a follow-up email, Pfeiffer and Conerly added that they recognize the concern the incident created, and they are taking the situation seriously. The email stated that families have questions about why Lakeland was not placed in lockdown, but the incident remains an active investigation, and therefore, they are limited in what they can share.
“We have already initiated contact with the King County Sheriff’s Office to ensure alignment and open communication around our safety and security protocols as well as debriefing this incident and continuing to strengthen our partnership,” the email stated.
According to school district spokesperson Jessica Morgan, the school followed the directives of the deputies on the scene who did not initiate a lockdown and had the most reliable and complete information at the time. Morgan said staff or students did not hear or see anything to warrant a lockdown, and it was not until after the incident occurred that the scene had been secured, and the youth was in custody, that the district received limited information from the KCSO.
“At no point did law enforcement direct the school to go into a lockdown as they had secured the scene and believed there was no immediate threat to the school or the students,” Morgan said. “Additionally, it was confirmed with officers that no lockdown was needed, and that it was safe to dismiss students from school.”
Danny Quintero, the father of an Lakeland Elementary student who lives in the the neighborhood that joins the school’s property line, said he’s concerned that, following the shooting, the school was not put on lockdown and parents were not alerted by the school that there had been a shooting until about five hours after it occurred. Quintero said that kindergarteners at the school are released at 3 p.m., and the rest of the students are released at 3:05 p.m. Additionally, he said officers were still on the premises when kids were leaving school.
“An assumption should have been made until there was full clarity of what was happening because you’re talking about a 20-minute time span between the core group of students getting out of the school and the actual event that happened. So there’s enough time to enact a lockdown,” Quintero said. “It costs almost nothing to do, and it certainly would cost a lot more if something worse happened.”
Quintero said he would like to have a standard protocol that, when any agency — whether it be the KCSO or the local police department — responds to a shooting at or near a school, there is a lockdown, even if it is just for 15 minutes. He said that when kids were walking home, there was still an active crime scene.
According to King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson Casey McNerthney, the suspect has not yet been charged, but had a first appearance hearing on April 9. McNerthney said prosecutors asked that the suspect remain in secure detention, but the court ordered the suspect to be released to electronic home monitoring.
McNerthney said the suspect’s mother told the court she would supervise the suspect. He said that the suspect’s defense attorney said the suspect was a football player with good grades and no prior history.
McNerthney said that the conditions of the electronic home monitoring are that the suspect is to be monitored 24 hours a day, and that there be a safety plan in place from the juvenile’s school, and that the suspect can have no contact with the victim or witnesses. McNerthney said the KCPAO does not have the case referral yet and anticipates getting it on April 11 for a charging decision. He said charges depend on what is referred from the investigating detective based on the admissible evidence and the requirements under state law.
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