LAKE STEVENS — Snapshots taken throughout Jacob Long’s life showed him progressing from an infant to a young man full of promise as a son, a brother, a friend and a teammate.
Several hundred people watched Saturday as the images played on a projector screen at Calvary Chapel in Lake Stevens. By the time the video was over, tissues had come out to dry try tears and stifle sobs as people mourned the loss of one of the three young college students killed in a mass shooting at a Mukilteo house party a week earlier.
Like the others who died, Anna Bui and Jordan Ebner, Long and many of the 20 or so people at the party were recent Kamiak High School graduates. People knew him as Jake.
“For me, Jake was one of those pieces of happiness that made me feel human and I’ll miss him forever,” said longtime friend Jansen Garside, who graduated with Long in the class of 2015. He spoke during the open mic at the service.
Long was a standout baseball player who had just returned to Washington after spending his freshman year at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He was preparing to start his sophomore year at Washington State University.
Cody Atkinson coached him for four years with the Northwest Bandits, a select baseball team.
“Jake was the most loyal kid I have ever coached, ever been around,” Atkinson said.
Atkinson remembered Long as nonjudgmental and quick to make friends. After their time together, the coach felt like he was the one learning from his player.
“Jake coached me,” he said. “He taught me how to live.”
After the service, mourners filed into a room where they used pens to sign the outside of a closed hardwood casket containing Long’s body.
Long is survived by his parents, Autumn and David Snider; his younger brother and sister, William and Maddie Snider; grandparents Corene and Darrell Stocker, Michael and Victoria Long, Mike and Lynda Voigt, and Glenn and Shelly Hester. His obituary mentions numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.
Long, Bui and Ebner were killed in the Chennault Beach area of Mukilteo after midnight July 30. They were all 19.
Bui was laid to rest Friday. Ebner’s funeral arrangements are pending.
Will Kramer, 18, survived gunshot wounds from the attack. He was listed as an honorary pallbearer at Long’s service.
Police arrested Christopher Allen Ivanov, a University of Washington student, about two hours after the shooting as he was driving on I-5 near Chehalis.
Ivanov, 19, used to date Bui and attended Kamiak with the victims.
He remained in the Snohomish County Jail on Saturday, charged with three counts of aggravated murder, a crime that carries a possible death sentence. He also is charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder, in connection with Kramer’s injuries, and one count of first-degree assault, in connection with allegations that he pointed a Ruger semiautomatic rifle at another partygoer.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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