Newly released Marysville 911 calls include student witness

MARYSVILLE — She asked the emergency dispatcher if a police officer was going to find them.

The girl and 17 others were crammed inside what she described as an abandoned closet in an art room at Marysville Pilchuck High School on Oct. 24.

A freshman had opened fire inside a cafeteria. His actions ended the lives of five young people, including his own. A sixth, who was shot in the jaw, survived.

The last of the calls to 911 from that morning were released Tuesday by SNOPAC, the dispatch center that serves much of Snohomish County.

The shootings remain under investigation by the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team, a special task force of homicide detectives typically assigned to investigate police-involved shootings. The investigation is expected to take months.

The girl hiding in the closet gave the dispatcher her phone number. A police officer would call her. Pick up the phone, the dispatcher said.

The girl’s voice trembled as she said goodbye.

Other students told dispatchers they were in the cafeteria when the gunfire broke out.

“There is what at the high school?” a dispatcher asked a boy.

“Gunshots, in the cafeteria,” he said.

“Anyone injured?”

“Yeah, this kid, he shot a couple of kids, I’m pretty sure,” the boy answered.

Did he see where the students were shot?

“No. I saw kids just drop to the ground, at the cafeteria table.”

Another boy, hiding in a classroom with eight other students, said he ran out of the lunch room. He told the dispatcher that Jaylen Fryberg, a freshman, was the shooter. He had a black handgun, the boy said.

“If it was Jaylen, I know him. He didn’t seem …” he began to tell the dispatcher, but was interrupted with a question about what weapons may have been used.

The boy didn’t know the names of the injured.

“I think four people were hit or more,” he said.

Killed were Zoe Galasso, Gia Soriano, and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, all 14, and Andrew Fryberg, 15. Nate Hatch, 14, survived.

The boy hiding in the classroom told the dispatcher no one with him was hurt. They were safe, he said. He wasn’t hearing anymore gunfire.

“I don’t want you to open that door. OK?”

Reporters Rikki King, Eric Stevick and Scott North contributed to this story.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.