UPDATE 4/25/20: King County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Detectives announced on Saturday, April 25, 2020 that they have arrested a 13-year-old male suspect for last Tuesday’s shooting death of a 35-year-old Burien man.

The suspect has been booked into the Youth Service Center for investigation of murder.

As we previously reported, the victim was shot in the head in the 400 block of S. 152nd Street in Burien (map below) on Tuesday night, April 21.

The victim was transported to Harborview Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, and police announced his passing on Friday, April 24, 2020.

Burien Police Chief Ted Boe released this statement on Friday, indicating that this was gang-related:

“There are suspects in both of our homicides and the detectives are actively working to make arrests. They have been in Burien all week and are making progress. I will keep you informed when arrests are made.

“I have been in communication with other police chiefs, my KCSO counterpart, LINC and the King County “Gang” Sergeant. I am advocating for a regional emphasis and coordinated approach to suppression efforts. Given COVID, this will require some discussion among the chiefs to assure we are being safe and complaint with best practices. I have talked to MRO Abbott and I am hoping this will also involve some public messaging about this emphasis.

“I have assigned our SRO to focus exclusively on this work, leveraging his relationships to gain intelligence on gang activities. Detective Cueva is also working in Burien and partnering with SRO Arand to in gathering intelligence. Our CRU will be focusing on monitoring locations identified by Detective Cueva and SRO Arand for criminal activity. We are tracking graffiti through our Intelligence unit and monitoring the messaging to identify who is active and what gangs are in conflict. Captain Smithmeyer is working on setting up an local emphasis next week and unincorporated Precinct 4 is also working on setting up an emphasis in the next 2 weeks, which we will participate in. Both of these efforts will use intelligence to focus on those actively involved in violent criminal organizations and locations they are known to frequent.

“I also reached out to SWYFS and Norma had an idea for a digital communication between youth and police. I will be working with them to put a program into effect that allows youth to ask anonymous questions and have Detective Marquez answer them in Spanish. I spoke to Highline SD Operations Director- Scott Logan- this morning and he likes the idea of the question/answer program. He suggested the Highline Association could be a source of gift cards and the school district could share the program information with families on their daily communication. I offered up my staff to support any programs or activities the school district has ongoing. Patricia from PaRCS is also making phone contact with our high risk youth to continue the engagement despite COVID.

“We will continue to approach this problem from all angles, regional suppression, local suppression and leveraging partnerships for prevention activities.”


 

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