EVERETT — The frustration of the owner of a storage center where a killing occurred May 3 is palpable.
Around 6:15 a.m., a man renting one of the storage units and his friend came to pick up materials, and found a person sleeping inside a vehicle parked at the unit. That sleeping person had a gun and responded by shooting, Storehouse Mini-Storage business owner Phil Estep described.
The friend of the unit’s owner was hit by a bullet and later died at the scene, Estep said.
The person who had been sleeping in the truck then drove off with it.
Everett Police’s Major Crimes Unit is actively investigating. Because of this, police department spokesman Officer Kerby Duncan could not disclose certain details, but said the man alive today did not know the shooter. Police have not established if the deceased victim knew the shooter, Duncan said.
The shooter was still at large as of Thursday, May 12.
The county medical examiner’s office is not publicly identifying the man who died out of respect for the family, that office said in a media report. Officers tried to save the 48-year-old from Marysville at the scene before he died from the gunshot wound.
The shooting was “about as thoughtless as can be,” Estep said, saying that with the criminal justice system today, the man who killed another might well be jailed but then released shortly thereafter.
“The criminals have more rights than the working people,” Estep said.
The stolen pickup truck was recovered in Seattle soon after, Duncan said. It’s in Everett Police impound.
The storage center is along Smith Avenue, in an industrial area about a block south from the Everett Gospel Mission which serves people experiencing homelessness.
People have stolen from his units and building, and vandalized the business, he’s described to City Council previously.
Anyone with a crime tip about this or any incident can leave a message with Everett Police at 425-257-8450 or email tips@everettwa.gov
During a phone call, Estep praised that the City Council established a “no-sit/no-lie” ordinance that restricts people from sleeping along a section of Smith and a few blocks around it, and prohibits Good Samaritan groups from providing free food or services without a city permit.
This eliminated the “mobs of people” hanging around outside the Everett Gospel Mission, Estep said.
The “no-sit/no-lie” rule came into effect last July when the city opened a group of Pallet Shelter cabins. The cabins are to temporarily place unhoused individuals who might not want to sleep inside a homeless shelter. They began as a one-year pilot project, and the city will be keeping the program going through a new infusion of federal American Resuce Plan Act dollars plus a funding grant from Snohomish County, city spokeswoman Kimberley Cline said.
Two efforts have obtained city permits to offer humanitarian services within the “no-sit/no-lie” area, city spokesman Julio Cortes said.
