At approximately 1 a.m. this morning, Sunday, March 21, SPD officers were called to a night club at the 700 block of Westlake Ave N where there were reports of a disturbance, a possible robbery and gunshots fired.
According to the blotter, while officers were investigating at the scene, a victim arrived at Harborview Medical Center with a gunshot wound he said he sustained at the club. From the blotter:
Apparently, there had been a larger than normal crowd at the club, including an “after party” from a hip hop show. A fight broke out upstairs, followed by another downstairs on the dance floor. It was downstairs, that an unidentified suspect fired one shot, which struck our victim in the buttocks and exited through his groin area.
When the shot was fired, the crowd fled and exited the club. Very few witnesses remained, but those that did were identified and interviewed by officers. Officers also identified and interviewed the employees that were on scene. No one reported having seen the shooter.
It should be noted that when officers first arrived on scene, the manager in charge met them at the door and hurriedly attempted to divert their attention away from the interior of the club. He said that there had been a fight inside the club, which had then moved outside.
He said that there was then a gunshot, which had come from an area outside and well to the north of the club. Other witnesses that had been inside the club all said that it was clear that the shot came from inside near the dance floor.
The manager’s story was so completely different from the other witnesses, and was so inconceivable that it was clear that he had been intentionally misleading officers to divert the investigation away from the club.
Had he been successful, officers would’ve been off on a wild goose chase, and not recovered the evidence inside the club, and might never have determined what actually happened.
The manager was arrested and booked into King County Jail for False Reporting. SPD officers are still investigating the shooting. On Friday, March 19 officers responded to gunshots outside another Lower Queen Anne night club, where they made one arrest.