A man who allegedly leveled a .357 Magnum pistol and fired into a crowd was charged with first-degree murder Friday in the Sept. 3 shooting death of Jay Clements of Everett.
Clements, 21, was gunned down while reportedly trying to quell a fistfight that erupted outside a party he was attending in Brier.
Noel Evan Caldellis, 18, of Seattle was being held in lieu of $1 million bail. He is scheduled to appear Monday in Snohomish County Superior Court.
Caldellis was one of at least 11 “amped up” young men and teenagers who rode in three cars from another party in Shoreline where alcohol and various drugs were being consumed, deputy prosecutor Matt Hunter said in court papers.
They went to the Brier residence after being invited to come for a fistfight, Hunter said.
The fight started almost immediately after the Shoreline group arrived, and Caldellis stood watching in the middle of a cul-de-sac. At one point he pulled the pistol from his waistband and fired two shots in the air, according to witnesses.
Moments later, while Caldellis was still standing in the lighted street “under no threat of attack, he aimed the gun into the crowd of onlookers and fired twice more,” Hunter said.
One shot hit Clements in the pelvic area and the second bullet pierced his heart, Hunter said.
A neighbor told police that Caldellis appeared to aim “deliberately, not in a hurry,” court papers said.
When police arrived, they found Clements face down in a flowerbed. He was bleeding, was not breathing and had a weak pulse, documents said. He went into cardiac arrest while en route to Harborview Medical Center, where he died.
Caldellis was arrested the next day and initially told police the gun was so heavy he couldn’t hold it up, and that’s why the shots went into the crowd.
Later, according to documents, he told investigators he shot into the crowd, “like not necessarily trying to point out exactly one person, but I just shot it.”
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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