Teen killed at Garfield High School had long criminal history

If Quincy Coleman had been sentenced to a year or more in a juvenile-detention facility, as prosecutors recommended earlier this year after his fingerprints were lifted from a change jar in a home he admitted burglarizing, he'd probably be alive today.

According to King County court documents, prosecutors in September had recommended the 16-year-old be sentenced to a 52- to 65-week stint in a juvenile-detention home.

But Superior Court Judge Carol A. Schapira instead chose to give the boy — who had a history of residential burglaries, car prowls and drug violations — another chance and suspended the sentence, allowing Coleman to go free.

Said one law-enforcement official familiar with the case who did not want to be named, "He'd be locked up, but he'd be alive."

Coleman, who had recently registered as a student at Garfield High School to fulfill some of his court obligations, was fatally shot on the steps behind the school Friday around 8:30 p.m.

Another teenage boy, 15, also was injured in the gunfire but managed to make it to the nearby Teen Life Center and was taken to Harborview Medical Center.

Police said the 15-year-old has not been cooperating with investigators and no arrests have been made.

While police have not characterized the death as a gang-related shooting, gang-unit detectives have been involved in the investigation, police said.

After school Monday, groups of students gathered outside of Garfield to talk about what happened and pay respects to their friend.

Seattle Times news researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.

On the steps where Coleman fell, friends placed flowers, teddy bears, dollar bills, some half-smoked Swisher Sweets cigars, Newport cigarettes, Gummi candies and empty Hennessy cognac bottles. Candles were lit as a trio of middle-schoolers cried.

"I'm tired of this gang stuff," said Gabrielle Price, an eighth-grader at Asa Mercer Middle School.

"Every time we get close to somebody, they die," said her friend, Kyjuana Jones. "I'm tired of crying."

Joy Williams, of the Van Asselt Community Center Teen Program, who was supervising the girls as they mourned, said, "It's so sad to see ... kids killing each other over and over and over again."

"What I'd like to know is where they get their guns and who is behind this," Williams asked.

A young man, who described himself as a good friend of Coleman's, said the shooting was understood among the young people who hang out on the streets of Seattle to be about "territory and colors."

"You can call it a gang, but it ain't a gang," said another young man, who declined to give his name. He said that the people he hangs with from the Central Area, for example, know that they can't safely venture south of Franklin High School.

He said that the dispute that took Coleman's life is between the people in the Central Area who "wear red, black and gray" and those from the South End who wear mostly "blue, green and orange."

According to neighbors of Coleman's grandmother — where Coleman, his mother and siblings sometimes stayed — the child they knew was well-behaved, polite, obedient and curious.

"He was an adorable little kid," said Kate Bajadali, of East Thomas Street, who remembers Coleman coming to her house to play with kittens.

"I was impressed with how well they minded their mother and grandmother," she said. "They did chores around the house and mowed the lawn."

Her husband, Ron Bajadali, said Coleman was an unusually talkative and gregarious youngster. "He and his sister always had lots of questions," he said. "They didn't have a lot of money, but they all seemed to be close and they stuck up for each other."

Coleman had first gotten into trouble with the law when he was 13, according to court documents, and he attempted to rob a 14-year-old on a bicycle by accosting the older teen and saying, "Give me all you [sic] money or I'll shoot you with my gun. I have a gun."

Coleman opted for deferred prosecution and over the next few years racked up criminal charges for criminal trespassing, residential burglary, prowling cars and possessing crack cocaine with an intent to distribute.

In March, Coleman was arrested after police lifted his fingerprints from a change jar in a home he pleaded guilty to burglarizing in September.

Less than two months later, he became the fifth teenager killed by gun violence in Seattle this year, and some of the kids who knew him were crying on the steps where he died while others vowed vengeance.

"What comes around will go around," said another young unnamed man.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Linda Shaw contributed to this report.