LYNNWOOD — A 17-year-old boy was looking to sell a half-pound of marijuana to a woman on Dec. 27.
By the end of the night, he had a bullet in his leg.
The deal seemed like any other. The boy said he and a 19-year-old woman messaged through Snapchat and agreed to meet in the parking lot of Hazelwood Elementary near Lynnwood, according to a sheriff’s deputy’s report. She would be in a silver Hyundai.
They met about a year ago at Mountlake Terrace High School, he said. They had exchanged marijuana from time to time.
In the evening, he walked to the school and saw the Hyundai. But the woman was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, a man got out of the passenger side, the boy said. Then, suddenly, several more men surrounded the teen.
They told the boy to hand over everything, documents say.
He obliged and gave them his cellphone, headphones and a $10 bill.
They handed back the cellphone and demanded him to unlock it.
The teen took the phone and ran for it, but the men quickly tackled him to the ground. The boy took out a gun, loaded a round and fired into the air.
Another man about 20 feet away fired back, according to the report. The teen was struck in the leg.
The men took his backpack, along with the half-pound of marijuana, and fled.
Surveillance video from the school appeared to confirm the boy’s story, as did several shell casings and blood found at the scene.
The group of men could be connected to a string of marijuana shop robberies in the region, court papers say. One of the suspects in those cases is friends with the 19-year-old woman on Snapchat and Instagram. His Snapchat photo shows him sitting on a silver Hyundai.
The license plate can be seen in the picture. The Hyundai was registered to Enterprise and it was recently rented by the woman, documents say. The car apparently was never returned.
The woman deleted her Snapchat account after the robbery, the boy said. She was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of first-degree robbery. Her bail was set to $100,000.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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