Bloodbath at Wash. party
Gunman kills ex-gal pal, 2 others
THREE PEOPLE were killed early Saturday when a 19-year-old gunman opened fire on a house party in a small Seattle suburb.
The shooter, identified as Allen Ivanov, fled the Mukilteo home after the attack, but police tracked him down in Lewis County, about 100 miles south of the crime scene, officials said.
About 20 people were at the party when the suspect arrived just after midnight.
The gunman shot two people at a fire pit in the backyard before scaling a roof and firing more shots into the gathering of young people, according to Susan Gemmer, a grandmother to one of the witnesses, 18-year-old Alexis Gemmer.
Susan Gemmer says she was told the young man who lives at the home was leading her granddaughter to safety through a garage door when the gunman shot the man.
“She panicked and ran back in the house and hid in the closet until police arrived,” Gemmer told the Seattle Times. The wounded man made it across the street, she said.
Gemmer and her granddaughter frantically texted as Alexis hid in the closet, she told the Seattle paper.
The victims were identified by friends as Anna Bui — reportedly the shooter’s exgirlfriend — Jake Long and Jordan Ebner.
Ivanov, who worked as a software engineer, was booked on three counts of murder.
“We are as shocked and disturbed by the events in Washington state as everyone else,” his employer, Skirmos, said in a statement to NBC News.
The town’s mayor, Jennifer Gregerson, says the community has been “shaken to its core,” by the shooting.
“There were many young people who saw and heard things that no one should ever experience,” Gregerson said.