No charges to be filed against woman who shot man at bus stop

No charges will be filed against a Seattle woman who shot and seriously wounded a man on a downtown Seattle sidewalk in April after an argument on a Metro bus.

The King County Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday the woman, 31, was acting in defense of herself, her partner and four children when she shot Emmanuel Salters in the chest with a legally licensed handgun as he advanced toward her on April 25.

He was hospitalized and later released.

The shooting was captured on Metro surveillance tape at a bus stop at Third Avenue and Seneca Street.

Authorities said the woman and her family were riding a No. 27 bus when Salters, 26, boarded. He began to sway back and forth and fell into the woman, who pushed him away. This angered Salters, and the two began swearing at each other.

Salters stayed aboard when the woman and her family got off the bus. As they walked away, the woman and others in the family made obscene gestures, according to prosecutors, who said Salters then got off the bus and followed them, making a rude comment to the woman.

In a news release Tuesday explaining why they declined to file charges against her, prosecutors said the woman had warned Salters to "stay away" and said "you better get away from me," and also displayed her gun. "But despite her warnings, Salters continued directly at her, getting to within 1 to 2 feet ... [and] as he did so he began to spit at" the woman.

She fired once, striking Salters in the chest and nicking his aorta. He staggered into the intersection of Third and Seneca and collapsed.

An FBI agent who heard the shots detained the woman, who was jailed and released two days later.

In their news release, prosecutors said that her account of what happened was consistent with what witnesses reported and the surveillance tape showed, while "Salters' statement ... was not consistent with that of other witnesses."

The news release also said that Salters claimed he was not charging toward the woman when he got off the bus but was running to catch another bus.

Prosecutors said that although the woman may have made obscene gestures at the man, she did not start the physical confrontation.

She is not being charged, according to the news release, "because there is strong evidence in this case that she reasonably believed under the facts and circumstances known to her at the time that Salters was about to injure her."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com.