Student killed in Ingraham High School shooting; suspect arrested
Seattle WA November 9 2022 A student was shot and killed Tuesday at Ingraham High School, inciting fear among students and drawing hundreds of parents to the school’s North Seattle campus.
The suspect was arrested on a Metro bus about an hour after the gunfire rang out in a hallway during school hours Tuesday morning. Many details remained unclear hours later, but Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Brent Jones said the shooting appeared to be a “targeted attack” and that officials “have no reason to believe this was part of a bigger plan.”
Classes at the school have been canceled for Wednesday and Thursday. The student who was killed has not yet been publicly identified.
“We have two families that have been impacted: Somebody that is going to jail and somebody that has lost their life,” Police Chief Adrian Diaz said in a news conference at City Hall.
Diaz said the department is reviewing security footage of the shooting, which took place about 100 feet from the nearest entrance, and that there were many witnesses in the school hallway.
“It wasn’t at the doorstep. It wasn’t at the front entrance. It was within the school environment,” Diaz said.
Officers entered the school after reports of shots fired, found the student suffering from a gunshot wound and aided the student until medics arrived, within about 10 minutes of emergency calls, according to police. The student later died despite lifesaving efforts, however.
Police recovered a gun from the suspect but said they couldn’t yet confirm whether it was the weapon used in the shooting. They declined to say whether the suspect was a fellow student, also noting a person on the bus with the suspect “does not appear” to be involved.
As word of the shooting began to spread, hundreds of parents began arriving at the school to pick up their children. They found a campus surrounded by police tape and swarming with officers.
Many parents and guardians were on their phones, updating worried family members. There were snacks and coffee, but tensions were high, and some parents waited two hours to be reunited with their kids.
One parent said her daughter was giving her text updates while she was in her classroom waiting to be picked up. Another woman rushed from work to pick up her cousin, who told her she was scared and hiding.
Students started being released from the building around 12:30 p.m. Tables were set up in alphabetical order out front, and staff yelled out one last name at a time.
Madeleyne De Leon, an Ingraham student, said she was walking with two friends to gym class when she got a call from another friend. “There were shots. Get away from the school as fast as possible,” he said, and hung up.
De Leon, 14, and her friends ran from the school to the a nearby grocery store parking lot, where they waited for their parents to pick them up.
The shooting happened in the passing time before second period, she said.
“I’m really scared, but I’m glad most people are OK. I’m OK and with my family right now,” she said. “It’s a lot to process.”
About 15 minutes after Leanna Sparks learned there had been a shooting at the school her two sons attend, she got a text from her 14-year-old saying he had heard gunshots.
“It’s like my worst nightmare come true,” she said.
While her sons waited inside their classrooms for police to visit each room, her sons were “scared [and] worried about who got hurt,” she said. “They want to get out, they don’t want to go back to school … until we figure out what’s going on.”
Sparks, who has lived in the neighborhood for 12 years, is now considering home schooling her two children. She had already prepared them for what to do if they ever heard shots: Hide, she told them, and don’t be a hero.
Fred Jala, whose child is a sophomore at Ingraham, said he’s feeling lots of emotions: “scared for my student’s safety, sadness for the victim, sadness for the students for being so close to violence, anger at gun culture and its enablers.”
