EVERETT – A fatal shooting in Everett on Tuesday night may be a case of self-defense, according to a neighbor who heard the gunshots.
The violence erupted in the 2300 block of Wetmore at 8:22 p.m. Tuesday, police said.
Gretchen Galstad said she heard the gunfire and later spoke with a neighbor who witnessed the events unfold in the home where the shooting occurred.
Apparently a man kicked in the front door at the same time another man was leaving the century-old building, Galstad said.
The intruder hit the man with a handgun, went up the front stairs and fired a few shots, she said. Galstad lives in the downstairs unit in the building where the shooting took place.
The man who was struck with the gun, a friend of the buildings upstairs tenant, managed to wrestle the weapon away and shoot the intruder, she said.
She was watching TV Tuesday night when she heard gunshots, she said. She dove to the floor and called 911.
Police arrived and told her to lock the doors and stay put.
“I turned my TV off and hid,” she said.
On Tuesday night, police were talking to a second young man, also believed to be in his 20s, who was walking on a sidewalk nearby the home when police arrived, Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said. Police later released the man after determining they had no grounds to detain him, Goetz said.
He said the man police questioned had earlier been visiting a friend who lived at the home where the shooting occurred.
The identity of the man who was shot has not been released. Police believe he died as a result of gunshot wounds, Goetz said.
Investigators have a “fairly decent picture” of what happened and do not believe the shooting was random, Goetz said.
“We simply need time at this point to put it all together,” he said.
Today, bullet holes could be seen on the stairway area of the house where the shooting occurred.
The shooting comes on the heels of two other recent gun-related deaths in the city.
On Saturday, police found the body of Robert John Sandgren, 18, in a home in the 5400 block of Broadway. Two men are in the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of murder.
On March 19, police found the bodies of an elderly couple in the 600 block of 112th Street SE. The deaths were ruled murder-suicide, the Snohomish County Medical Examiner said.
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